Germany to require 'black box' in autonomous cars

[captaincranky]

I know what you are saying, it can and probably will be abused. I get it... If it would make you feel better you could put some brass mesh around the box. Or hell, just wrap your whole car in the stuff. Maybe you can absorb the radar that cops are shooting at you to give you a speeding ticket!

Oh shucks, you just shorten up the landing gear and clip the wings back a bit and a car made with this tech would, evade all radar bands, and look way cooler than a Tesla doing it:

In all seriousness I'm just thinking of ideas to help improve vehicle safety and simplify jobs for police, investigators, insurance, etc. which in theory (likely not in practice though) could save money and later on save lives where improvements can be made.

In the US, and probably just about everywhere else too, drivers training really needs to be a lot more in depth and a lot more stringent with regards to being a safe, defensive driver who is also aware of how to properly perform emergency maneuvers. I wouldn't doubt that 99% of the drivers on the roads don't have the necessary knowledge to avoid many common avoidable collisions. 95% of that 99% probably ignore the road laws anyway so perhaps this is pointless. It just really disgusts me the amount of fatalities we have in vehicle collisions. I'm certainly not perfect by any means, but I feel like I'm trying a hell of a lot more than others.

Well on one hand you're preaching to the choir.I've driven a motor cycle for the past 20 years, (not gonna say anything to jinx that), and held a federal drivers license and the defensive driving training that goes along with it.

I did have a car totaled while I was driving it, and like most people's accidents, "it wasn't my fault". It really wasn't, since I was hit head on but some lunatic who was having an epileptic seizure while being chased by the police @ 65 MPH on a 2 lane road, speed limit 25. I tried to get out of the way, but a guard rail on the right side prevented me from driving into a creek to avoid him.

I also have driven tractor trailers and such in my former trade as a mechanic.

Here's the thing, there are too many people in the world, and that results in too many people on the road. So, all I can say is, after you get more and more oversight while you're driving, parts and OEM extras get more and more expensive, it will raise the threshold on who gets to drive. At some point in our population explosion, driving will become a privilege of those 1 or 2% people are always b***hing about. In your clamor for more controls being put in place, just make certain you stay ahead of the wealth curve, or the bus you're on will be what has the black box.

And quite frankly, whether it disgusts you or not, there are such a thing as "acceptable losses" on the highways. Humans simply don't seem to be able to "wrap their heads around the idea that nobody lives forever". Which is borne out in full measure if you take the time to check your health insurance premiums. Instead of being killed on the road, that same person might spend $1,000,000 of your insurer's money, "fighting the good fight", against some disease for which we haven't a cure, or even a clue to a cure about.

So, you send people off to war, and there are "acceptable losses"". So it goes with terminal illnesses and the highways, there are "acceptable losses".

If the world's population would slow down their breeding a bit, perhaps then you'd be able to convince me death on the highways is actually a problem.

All this nonsense is just one big cognitive dissonance; "Everybody should live forever, all disease should be cured, the world is overpopulated with people who contribute nothing in furtherance of societal goals". Maybe we should shoving black boxes into the 3rd worlds underpants. We could use some telemetry on those activities