Insidious plan to foist four million insurance black boxes on drivers

That's bound to reduce the amount and duration of traffic jams caused by accidents and their clean-up, so it's a Good Thing.
 
The eCall system is going to be very neat, but using GPS is weird. Surely it should use Galileo. Whats up with that EC?

Update
Of course it's going to use Galileo.

People who make rules over Cowboys head said:
(6) The provision of accurate and reliable positioning information in emergencies is an essential element of the effective operation of the 112-based eCall in-vehicle system. Therefore, it is appropriate to require its compatibility with the services provided by satellite navigation programmes, in particular the systems established under the Galileo and EGNOS programmes as set out in Regulation (EU) No 1285/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council8 .
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same people who tell Cowboy what to do said:
(13) Directive 95/46/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council10 , Directive 2002/58/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council11 and Articles 7 and 8 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union 11a govern the processing of personal data carried out in the context of this Regulation. Any processing of data through the 112-based eCall in-vehicle system should therefore be carried out in accordance with these Directives and under the supervision of the Member States' competent authorities, in particular the independent public authorities designated by the Member States pursuant to those Directives , in particular to guarantee that vehicles equipped with 112-based eCall in-vehicle systems, in their normal operational status related to 112 eCall, are not traceable and are not subject to any constant tracking and that the minimum set of data sent by the in-vehicle eCall system includes only the minimum information required for the handling of emergency calls by PSAPs, and that no personal data is stored after that . Given the consent of the data subject or a contract between both parties, other conditions may apply in case another emergency call system is installed in the vehicle in addition to the 112-based eCall in-vehicle system, but it should nevertheless comply with those Directives.
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narf said:
So... you want excessively long traffic jams after an accident?
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How would such a system help prevent this by itself? I can't see how, because this has been tried through other methods and you get the same long jam even if you immediately divert traffic.
 
Spectre said:
How would such a system help prevent this by itself? I can't see how, because this has been tried through other methods and you get the same long jam even if you immediately divert traffic.
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It speeds up response time, which in and of itself speeds up time to clear up the accident - shortening the jam duration.

Additionally, if faster response time leads to less serious injuries, there'll be fewer complications while attending the scene enabling further speedup.
 
narf said:
It speeds up response time, which in and of itself speeds up time to clear up the accident - shortening the jam duration.

Additionally, if faster response time leads to less serious injuries, there'll be fewer complications while attending the scene enabling further speedup.
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Yes, this was also the promise of Onstar in GM cars. Turns out that in reality, it hasn't actually improved urban response time to the scene as the traffic jam is *already* in place and the emergency vehicles have to fight through it anyway.
 
narf said:
The earlier they start the earlier they'll get there, jam or no jam.
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In my recent motorcycle accident, people called 911 while I was still in the air and the ambulance was alerted within a minute or so of the actual incident. Such a system as proposed would not really better that time.

Despite being within five blocks of the fire station, it still took them eight minutes to get there because of the traffic jam. Again, not going to really better that with such a system.

On top of that, we've got more than a decade of experience with OnStar. It hasn't improved urban response times at all and in some cases it's actually slower than someone calling 911 and giving the location (due to civilian GPS inaccuracy and signal reception issues in built up areas.)
 
You're usually not going to have people calling 112 while the accident is still happening. As for crummy civilian GPS, how is that relevant to this proposal?
 
narf said:
You're usually not going to have people calling 112 while the accident is still happening. As for crummy civilian GPS, how is that relevant to this proposal?
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The CEP Circle for civilian GPS, which presumably this system would use the Galileo analog of, is large enough that in built- up areas it can put you a block or more away from the actual site.

And in the US, yes, we often get people dialing 911 while the crash is still ongoing in urban areas. It is quite common.
 
narf said:
It speeds up response time, which in and of itself speeds up time to clear up the accident - shortening the jam duration.

Additionally, if faster response time leads to less serious injuries, there'll be fewer complications while attending the scene enabling further speedup.
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How will it speed response on a busy motorway in which nearly every driver and passenger already has a mobile phone? Now if I call in a crash the 911 operator already has the details and tells me someone is already dispatched - and I just watched the crash happen
 
narf said:
You're usually not going to have people calling 112 while the accident is still happening. As for crummy civilian GPS, how is that relevant to this proposal?
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Bullshit. In my crash EMS was already being dispatched before the vehicles involved stopped rolling.
 
When you call 112 there's an average answering time of 6 seconds. Then you need to describe the nature of the incident, how many are involved and where it is. Takes about a minute. Then the alarm is raised and in 90 seconds* from that help will be on their way. If cars are still rolling after that it must be a very prolonged crash...

I've checked out a report from MSB and they calculate eCall will save about 5-6 minutes time on average and hours (or several days) in certain cases. Naturally the time benefit will be the lowest on a busy motorway, but then those are the safest roads. The dangerous roads are the small country roads with oncoming traffic, trees, animals and corners. Most deaths are single accidents, and for a single accident on a country road late at night, that's where eCall will make all the difference.

* 8 minutes for volunteer firemen.
 
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Narf was specifically talking about the ability of EMS to get there before a traffic jam, which indicates a busy motorway environment. Kiki's Ford has a nice feature, when you have your phone paired with the car, it will call 911 for you if you crash. Your cell phone already sends it's GPS coordinates when you call 911, so the car just has to use the existing system with all the tracking and wiretap preventions of your country. This system is entirely superfluous.
 
Blind_Io said:
Narf was specifically talking about the ability of EMS to get there before a traffic jam, which indicates a busy motorway environment.
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I didn't say EMS will get there before the jam. I said they have a chance to set off sooner, clearing up the accident sooner, removing the jam sooner. I know the difference will not be felt by drivers, I was just making up a reason for Cowboy.

Kiki's Ford has a nice feature, when you have your phone paired with the car, it will call 911 for you if you crash. Your cell phone already sends it's GPS coordinates when you call 911, so the car just has to use the existing system with all the tracking and wiretap preventions of your country. This system is entirely superfluous.
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This is no different. The GPS/Galileo/GLONASS receiver is built into the car, knowing your coordinates and direction when you crash, and the GSM module is built into the car as well making the call for you with data transmitted first and a voice connection opened after that. The upside is you don't need a phone paired to your car for that to work, you're not running out of cell phone battery, you're not foiled by a bad fix from within the car, you can include data from the car such as number of occupants, severity of crash, who knows. If Kiki's Ford feature is nice then this is at least as nice.

It does lead to funky side-effects though :lol: http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Feuerwehr-rettet-Crash-Test-Dummies-169440.html
In a nut shell, crash test engineers failed to turn off the system in a BMW when crashing it in 2007. Emergency responders showed up, expecting serious injuries based on the data sent by the car.
 
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That is all fine, assuming that the car only sends data when it's in a crash. As soon as you start mandating data recorders and telemetry uploads you open the door on a variety of privacy issues. Most cars in the US already have event data recorders (EDR) but they have to be manually accessed and are usually only accessed after a crash. There has been legislation introduced in the last few years that never saw a vote that would allow consumers to turn off EDRs, even the EFF is concerned about privacy with these things. Some US states require a warrant to retrieve EDR data, others don't. Now, if you add the ability to remote-uplink that data you open the possibility of hacking, remote tele-ticketing, and remote nannying of your driving habits. Say goodbye to spirited canyon runs on deserted roads, now if you hit that 20 mph corner doing 35 mph (well within the margins of safety for even a mid-performace vehicle) you just got a ticket or notified your insurance company to raise your rates.

Even if it isn't mandated you will probably see insurance companies demand remote access to telemetry as part of the insurance contract, if you refuse, your rates go up. Even if you take it out of the hands of government, you can contract to just about anything civilly; if that becomes industry-standard then we all lose.
 
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With that tinfoilhattery you shouldn't even bring that GPS-enabled phone hailed a few posts up with you. I'm sure someone is tracking your movements through that already.
 
narf said:
With that tinfoilhattery you shouldn't even bring that GPS-enabled phone hailed a few posts up with you. I'm sure someone is tracking your movements through that already.
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Tinfoil hat or not, is some people are uncomfortable with tracking devices in their cars, why force them into it anyways? If you think this tech is fantastic, then by all means use it, but I would prefer to have mine disabled or removed.
 
Remote tracking via cellphone has already received some flack for being misused by paranoid/abusive spouses, I see this going the same way eventually.
 
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