What is known about the Event Data Recorder in F150s. Is Ford using the device in F150s? I was listening to public radio (shows what sort of a life I lead) and there was a story about EDRs. The story said GM has been using them for a 1/2 decade and some Ford vehicles had then and Toyota will soon put them in their vehicles.

The radio broadcast mentioned that someone in Canada was convicted of manslaughter because the EDV said the vehicle was traveling at 114 mph.

If the devices are in F150's does the owners manual mention them? Did any salesman mention it when the sale took place?

Any other knowledge or thoughts on these devices?

Chip

http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/

The recorder, a four-inch square box that sits beneath the front seat, is installed in about half of General Motors' 1999 car models and almost all its 2000 and 2001 cars, said Ellie Martin, a
spokeswoman for the U.S. National Highway Safety Traffic Administration.

Similar to the black boxes used to record data in airplanes, pipelines, ships and trains, the car's
recorder springs into action as part of the air bag deployment system. Originally designed to improve air bag performance based on the severity of the collision, the event data recorder can tell accident investigators about: the car's velocity; its engine RPMs; how far down the accelerator pedal was pressed; if the brakes were applied; whether the seatbelts
were buckled; and what warning lights were on - all from five seconds before impact, said O.P.P.
Constable Vince Gircys, a reconstructionist on the force.

When a collision occurs, the information is stored in the recorder's memory for 250 engine cycles (each time the car is turned on is a new cycle), "which is about 60 days for the average car," Gircys said - unless a newer accident overrides it.

While the event data recorder is also in some Ford cars, so far only General Motors has licensed a company--Vetronix of Santa Barbara, Calif.--to market a retrieval system able to decode the information. James Kerr, Vetronix' program coordinator for the crash data retrieval system, said the product has been on the market for about a year, with one for Ford likely to be released later this year.

Law enforcement tool?

Kerr said the company's $2,495 decoder has been used by police forces around the U.S.,
including the Massachusetts, Georgia and New Jersey state troopers and local police
departments in San Jose and Thousand Oaks, Calif. and Boon County, Ky., to name just a few.
The Massachusetts State Police won't official comment on its use of the retrieval system, but one officer who spoke off the record said the troopers haven't yet used it in a "case or criminal prosecution," but every police force in the U.S. "is looking to see what it can do."
In Ontario - the only Canadian jurisdiction with a retrieval system - Gircys used its information
during an inquest into the death of one of the drivers in the bridge accident.

"It's a computer, separate from the car's computer," he said. The most important data
investigators get from the black box is the delta V, or the car's change in velocity, he explained,

because that information will show the force of the impact by how dramatically the car went from traveling speed to a stop.

 

As far as I know the only Ford with these are Crown Vic cop cars. I could be wrong though. We had to send the airbag module from a crashed RCMP car to Ford so they could retrieve some data out of it. I'm not sure what all would be in there. It seems to be a pretty secret thing but I'll try to find out more.

 

We're going to be selling one for $149.00 that's two inches in size, records up to 72 hours of driving data (that's a lot!) and works with any OBD-II compliant vehicle. I've got one in the company truck right now, can never be too paranoid about how your employees treat the vehicle.

I can pull the unit, plug it into my computer and see speeds, how often they brake normal, heavy or extreme, how often they accelerate normal, heavy or extreme, speed at which an accident occurs and how hard/how long the brakes where applied prior to impact.

Its a great device for commercial use or to keep a watch on your kids.

 

I work for ford, If they have something like this it would be in the air bag module, beacuse there is no msytery module I know about.

 

Thanks All,

For the the input to this question.

From the discussion on Public Radio and the input here it seems that the airbag module is where the data is stored. I think there was a mention of impact force, braking or lack of breaking applied etc. stored in the airbag module. From my remembrance of the radio broadcast, those forces are recorded from approx 5 seconds before airbag deployment and 10 seconds after airbag deployment.

If Racerguy finds out any additional info at some time in the future, please add to this post or if in the future some time, it would be nice if you would start a new post with the updated material.

Thanks

chip

 

Check out www.vetronix.com

 

RacerGuy,

Thanks for the info. looks like the data is recorded on the air bag module.

Chip

From the site:

"In the event of an accident, data may be recorded on the vehicle’s air bag module... Vetronix is pleased to be working cooperatively with Ford..."