|
Page 1 of 2
It's a process your shop has probably done dozens if not hundreds of times: Replacing the airbag module under the front seat of a vehicle after the airbag has deployed in an accident. But chances are, you're soon going to think differently about that simple process.
Why? Because that seemingly simple "black box" you're tossing away and replacing with a new one contains some incredibly powerful information: the vehicle speed and deceleration during the five seconds prior to impact, whether the driver applied the brakes, the force of the impact, etc.
In short, that box and the information it contains could play a significant role in determining liability following an accident. It could be used to justify or deny injury claims. And perhaps, of most importance to collision repairers, some believe it may be used as a basis for determining repair expense.
How they work
Count Scott Palmer among those excited about the possibilities that "black box" data offers. Palmer is president and CEO of Injury Sciences, a 5-year-old company that helps "claim adjusters understand accident and injury causation." He says at least five of the Top 20 insurance carriers are working toward putting airbag module data to use by their fraud or claims departments.
Automotive "black boxes" (GM calls them "sending and diagnostic modules," while Ford calls them "restraint control modules") capture far less data than those in airplanes, and unlike flight data recorders, only begin "recording" when an accident appears imminent.
|
Big brother in the back seat
No one likes the idea of Big Brother lurking in the back seat,
watching how and where you drive. The idea of an automotive "black box"
collecting data may seem to many like another invasion of privacy.
Scott Palmer of Injury Sciences says it's important to note that
airbag modules are not using global positioning systems to track where
the vehicle is being driven; only the vehicle speed and other factors
are recorded.
"When we are on the highway, we are giving up certain privacy
expectations," Palmer said, pointing out that police use of radar guns
or stop-light cameras have not been found to invade privacy. "According
to the data I've seen, the general public is okay when it comes to
crash data [being recorded]. It's only when it comes to tracking where
you've been and when you've been there that there is a big difference."
Where things will really get interesting - both in terms of privacy,
and automaker and insurer 'control' following an accident - will be if
'black box data' is communicated automatically via such systems as GM's
"OnStar."
This past spring, IBM Corporation, Insurance Services Office Inc.,
and the Safety Intelligence Systems Corporation formed a partnership
for the delivery of auto crash information to a global crash database
launched by the end of this year.
More recently, General Motors announced that it will begin adding an
advanced automatic crash notification (AACN) system to vehicles
equipped with the OnStar system. Currently, the OnStar system is
automatically notified within seconds when a subscriber's airbag
deploys. The new GM AACN system will automatically call for help if the
vehicle is involved in a moderate to severe frontal, rear or
side-impact crash, regardless of airbag deployment.
The new system also provides crash severity information to OnStar
call center advisors, who relay it to 911 dispatchers. Eventually, the
system may report how many occupants are in the vehicle, whether they
are using safety belts and other information, GM says.
The GM AACN system will be available beginning in 2003 on about
400,000 OnStar-equipped 2004 model year vehicles. AACN will be added to
additional GM model lines equipped with OnStar in subsequent model
years.
|
"There are accelerometers in the vehicle that wake the system up just prior to a crash," Palmer said. "The system wakes up and determines the severity of the crash, the energy that's in the crash, because that's the energy that creates the damage to the car. Once it is calculated, the system determines whether this crash is severe enough to deploy the airbag. But once the system wakes up, the data is recorded whether or not the bag is deployed."
At the moment of impact
What data is recorded? It varies somewhat by vehicle make and model, and the systems may record information accessible to the automaker but not to the aftermarket. But in general the systems record whether the driver's seat belt was being used, if the passenger airbag had been disabled, and five seconds of pre-impact data (in 10-millisecond increments): the speed of the vehicle, engine speed, brake status and throttle position. It also records detailed vehicle deceleration information or what is sometimes referred to as "crash pulse."
"If you're an insurance company, this is invaluable data when you begin to link it with the environment in which the crash occurred in determining how an accident occurred," Palmer said. "It can be vitally important to the adjudication of casualty claims and determining fault and what injuries should or should not be expected. Black box data is to crash litigation as DNA is to paternity suits. It tells us what happened."
Palmer said if the airbag deploys, the information is permanently written to the module. If the crash is such that the airbag does not deploy, the data is temporarily stored by the module and will be erased after 250 ignition cycles - on average, the equivalent of about six weeks. If during that time, however, the vehicle is in a subsequent collision with a higher severity, that data will override the previous data.
Systems are currently on the market to "harvest" the airbag module data from almost all General Motors vehicles manufactured after 1994, although not all models offer both pre- and post-crash data. Data from 2000 and newer Ford Taurus, Sable, Crown Victoria and Windstar models is available. And other manufacturers are reportedly being added to the mix.
"With the addition of Ford, 15 percent of all private passenger vehicles on the road today have harvestable black box information," Palmer said. "And that percentage will increase, according to our estimates, even if no other manufacturers were added, by 2-3 percent per year. So there is a critical mass of this information available, and its availability is increasing at a significant rate."
That, he said, along with his company's estimates that use of the data could save insurance companies $4 billion to $7 billion a year, has attracted the interest of a number of insurers.
"There are strategies already in place and deployed by the insurance industry to collect this data on a systematic basis," Palmer said.
"Harvesting" the data
The collection or "harvesting" process for this data is relatively simple, Palmer said. Vetronix, based in Santa Barbara, Calif., currently sells a product called "CDR System" which downloads and converts data from a vehicle's black box into a decipherable format on a Windows-based PC. The system comes with a cable to hook up to the computer, and several different cables than can be used to link into the vehicle's under-dash OBD-II port or directly into the under-seat module.
"The normal class can take two to three days if you want to learn how to analyze the data, but if you just want to harvest the information, it takes about a half-hour to learn how to do it," Palmer said. "The actual harvesting activities take about 10 to 15 minutes. However, if the occupant compartment is compromised, and the harvesting portals are damaged or inaccessible, then you may have an hour or two involved in pulling the seat and making that hardware accessible. So in the more severe losses or total losses, the time could be substantially higher."
<< Start < Prev 1 2 Next > End >> |
