GenVibe - Community for Pontiac Vibe Enthusiasts

Brutal!But we don't drive "Station Wagons"

Reality check. The Vibe is a station wagon even if we don't want to admit it.

Yes it is considered a station wagon. It even says it on my registration.

From the article: Firefighters helped pull a data recorder from the wrecked station wagon to help in the investigation. The device, a microprocessor equipped in late-model General Motors vehicles, can record such information as the vehicle's speed, its acceleration or braking in the seconds before the crash, and whether seat belts were used. YIKES! I knew that GM was installing these boxes in some cars as a test a while back, but this makes it sound like a standard "feature" now!! Does every Vibe have one of these snooper boxes in it? Can your insurance company or the cops use it against you if it shows you were speeding before an accident? Am I the only one upset by this?

I consider it a Station Wagon but my registration in VA says its a SUV

quote:From the article: Firefighters helped pull a data recorder from the wrecked station wagon to help in the investigation. The device, a microprocessor equipped in late-model General Motors vehicles, can record such information as the vehicle's speed, its acceleration or braking in the seconds before the crash, and whether seat belts were used. YIKES! I knew that GM was installing these boxes in some cars as a test a while back, but this makes it sound like a standard "feature" now!! Does every Vibe have one of these snooper boxes in it? Can your insurance company or the cops use it against you if it shows you were speeding before an accident? Am I the only one upset by this?I don't think it's necessarily BAD...suppose you are in a collision with another person on a back stretch of roads. No one witnesses it. The police show up, he denies everything, says it's your fault, you were speeding and drunk and you didn't even TRY to stop before YOU hit HIM.If they were to take the recorders from both cars, they could find out if he was lying or not -- it could exhonerate you from any liability, and find him at fault.I think it has more pros than cons.As to this crash, I'm confused. I thought the Vibe had an excellent head-on collision rating for 30mph accidents? Why did this woman die?

quote:Snooper boxes. Can your insurance company or the cops use it against you if it shows you were speeding before an accident? Am I the only one upset by this?Big brother is watching you. There must be some prtection from this unit being used against you in a highway traffic act violation. In a criminal investigation, I agree it should be used to its full potential against the criminal. I've never heard of this 'box' being in the VIBE. Anyone know anything about this? Not just heresay or guesses, but hard facts about this unit and what it can and cannot reveal?

IMHO, you people are absurdly paranoid...but as I said, that's just my opinion...

quote:From the article: Firefighters helped pull a data recorder from the wrecked station wagon to help in the investigation. The device, a microprocessor equipped in late-model General Motors vehicles, can record such information as the vehicle's speed, its acceleration or braking in the seconds before the crash, and whether seat belts were used. YIKES! I knew that GM was installing these boxes in some cars as a test a while back, but this makes it sound like a standard "feature" now!! Does every Vibe have one of these snooper boxes in it? Can your insurance company or the cops use it against you if it shows you were speeding before an accident? Am I the only one upset by this?First off, My thoughts will be with the family and loved ones of Mrs. Kauhurnaa.Second, the Vibe isn't a General Motors Car. It is a Toyota at heart. We already know it dosen't feature class 2 electrical systems for data comunication (thats why no theft lock). So I am going out on a limb to guess, even if GM Air Bag Modules are capable of storing this info, a Vibe isn't.Third, as far as info use. Wouldn't this be along the lines of self incrimination, or a wife testifing against her husband (or visa versa)? So to be used against a driver, it would/should/could require a lot of legal work.

At only 30 mph I'm sure she died of natural causes before the accident. Especially if the car she hit was only scuffed. But I wonder why there was no mention of airbags deployed, and why they had to use the Jaws to get her out. Unless she wedged her car between some trees or somehow rolled it. The press always leaves out the important information then gives it's own interpretation of what really happend.

I know a little about these modules. They are present in virtually all recent "real" GM vehicles, but I'm not sure about the Vibe. They store about 5 seconds of pre-accident info on a number of basics: speed, throttle opening, brakes applied or not, etc. Courts have so far ruled that the contained information belongs to the vehicle owner, but authorities have obtained warrants to seize the modules and download the data in some cases. (There are commercial units similar to an engine trouble code scanner and costing ~ US$2,500 available for the purpose.) A couple of twists re the definition of "owner": If you are leasing the vehicle in question, you are NOT the owner, the lease company is. Also, once you cash the insurance company's check for a write-off, they are the owner, and can turn the module over to authorities and act on the data obtained.As someone mentioned, there are many positives aspects to these devices, but the data does sometimes contradict the driver's version of reality...Ah, life in the new millennium...

quote:I'm sure she died of natural causes before the accident. I agree...what was she, 76?....what a freak accident!

quote:IMHO, you people are absurdly paranoid...but as I said, that's just my opinion...Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they AREN'T out to get you!!!

quote:Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they AREN'T out to get you!!!Lol. Ok chief, if you say so...

quote:IMHO, you people are absurdly paranoid...but as I said, that's just my opinion...Really? Ever read the George Orwell book 1984? Big Brother is watching and that's not a good thing.

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quote:IMHO, you people are absurdly paranoid...but as I said, that's just my opinion...Really? Ever read the George Orwell book 1984? Big Brother is watching and that's not a good thing.Yep. I read it. And I don't think things will ever get that bad...I'll be in Canada long before that...

If her cause of death was trauma, then my bet is a torn aorta. I've seen that so many times in fatal accidents involving elderly. But without seeing any photos or any reconstruction reports we'll never know. Point is mute. She died, hopefully quickly and painlessly.

Sorry for the length but here is LA Times article on black box.A Key Witness at Crash Scenes: the Black BoxHelping investigators reconstruct accidents, data recorders are not just for jets anymore. But their use has raised privacy concerns.Los Angeles TimesDenise M. BonillaJune 24, 2003 They're small and easily forgotten, but they're beside you on almost every trip and a witness to most accidents. Event Data Recorders, known as black boxes, are well known in air crash investigations and are an increasing presence in modern vehicles. Hailed by safety advocates and insurance companies, data recorders provide a way to analyze crashes and are potentially a vital tool to prevent traffic fatalities. Nearly a dozen California law enforcement agencies use details on speed and braking, among others, to aid in accident investigations. Data recorders provide "a better idea of the crash experience," said Susan Ferguson, vice president of research at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety in Virginia. "They are providing useful information in some cases." Airplane black boxes date to the mid-20th century. Automobile data recorders appeared in the 1970s when car manufacturers began installing air bags and needed a sensing and diagnostic device to act as the brains of the air bag system, helping it deploy. That module, a 4-by-4-inch box that is actually silver in color, typically is in a vehicle's front end. In the 1990s, General Motors Corp. decided to use the module's extra memory to record pre-crash data. Most newer GM cars and trucks keep five seconds of information before a crash. Although data gathered vary by manufacturer, the most common include vehicle speed, engine speed, brake status and throttle position. Such information helped GM develop a passenger sensing system to detect smaller occupants and automatically suppress air bag deployment so children would not be injured. "This tool is really invaluable as an objective data collection source we can use to analyze and improve the design of automobiles," said Jim Schell, manager for product safety communications at GM in Michigan. Most other car makers also use this technology. But GM, and now Ford Motor Co., decided to allow others access to the data. In 2000, Santa Barbara-based Vetronix Corp. began selling a data-retrieval system that enables insurance and accident investigators to download data recorder information. The California Highway Patrol and 10 other law enforcement departments in the state have the retrieval systems, which cost about $2,500. Although the CHP's southern region investigators have had access to black-box data for two years, they've used them in only about a dozen cases, in part because only certain vehicles yield the information."This is not a panacea for all investigating techniques," CHP Officer Steve Kohler said. The data also can be misleading. In one case, a car had gone over a cliff and the driver kept his foot on the accelerator, causing the data recorder to give a false reading of the car's speed during the accident, Kohler said. They can be useful, however. Jon Cherney, an Irvine police investigator, used data recorder information to catch a Rancho Palos Verdes man in a recent hit-and-run collision. Although the man had denied being involved in the accident, Cherney said the recorder from his impounded car showed it had been in an accident in the same time period. The case is pending, he said. "It's one more tool in my toolbox that helps confirm what I know from the investigation," Cherney said. Recently, a consumer variant of the black box has become available. The device, marketed to parents of teens, emits beeps and other noises when a driver exceeds 70 mph, takes a turn too quickly or doesn't wear a seat belt. Devices installed by car makers don't record such regular driving details. Who actually owns the data recorder information is a central question in the debate over whether it represents an invasion of drivers' privacy. "Your car effectively spies on you," said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a civil liberties group based in Washington, D.C. "It's a little like having the guy from Allstate in the back seat of your car." General Motors and Ford, along with Vetronix, regard their data recorders as the property of the car owner, except in cases where the information is needed for criminal court cases. "In our opinion, the owner of the vehicle owns the data, and if anyone else wants to download [them] they should obtain permission from the owner of the vehicle [or] request a court order or a search warrant," Vetronix program manager James Kerr said. Another concern is that the information collected isn't uniform. Although more manufacturers are using data recorders and moving toward making the information available to outside investigators, there is no industry consensus on what is collected or whether manufacturers should be mandated to do so. "What is missing is an agreement with manufacturers on collecting the data," Ferguson said. "It remains to be seen if they will voluntarily do this or if people will push for the government to require them to do it." Engineering groups are trying to develop national standards. Safety Intelligence Systems, an Atlanta company headed by Ricardo Martinez, former chief of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, is working with IBM on a global database of crash information gleaned from recorders. "This is a major public health problem," said Martinez, an emergency room physician. "The fact of the matter is, we're in the dark ages of data."In the meantime, auto industry officials want to educate people on the little black box of information riding around with them. "There doesn't seem to be much awareness right now," Ferguson said. "The first thing we have to do is have people understand what these things are and how they work."

Hmmm...If the Data Recorder only holds 5 seconds worth,as both my sources and this article says, how did it help with the hit and run incident presumably hours or days later? Maybe we're not getting the whole story...

quote:it is NOT a station wagon... it is a CROSS OVER UTILITY VEHICLECall it what you will but cars like the Vibe and the PT Cruiser and the Pacifica are tall station wagons. "Crossover Utility Vehicle" is just a name car dealers use because people like you don't like the name "station wagon".The Vibe is a tall station wagon. Get over yourself.

I think of the vibe as a corolla hatchback, or corolla wagon, or sometimes a microvan. folks who get upset when their car is called a station wagon are too obsessed with what other people think. ------ added 7/5/2003 ------------I was reading a review of a Subaru Forester 2.5 XT in last Sunday's Washington Post. He sid that despite it's awful looks, it performs well. The quote I thought was applicable here was I will no longer use the term "crossover vehicle" in describing models such as the 2.5 XT. The term is a marketing ruse, an attempt to peddle what essentially are station wagons as something else -------------------------------------------------If you're really worried about someone being able to see how much you've been breaking the laws by reading your car's data recorder, then maybe you shouldn't be breaking so many laws.

quote:If you're really worried about someone being able to see how much you've been breaking the laws by reading your car's data recorder, then maybe you shouldn't be breaking so many laws.It has nothing to do with breaking laws. It has to do with invasion of privacy.

I guess so. I was slipping. I'd stopped worrying about how the gov't is eroding privacy and individual freedom. Back on it now. Technology can be invasive. I guess it depends on how the information collected is used, and who can get to it. Wonder what breaks if you remove the box from a vibe?

I don't think it can be removed. I think it's part of OBDIII and inside the CPU.

quote:Call it what you will but cars like the Vibe and the PT Cruiser and the Pacifica are tall station wagonsYes, the Vibe is a station wagon. Call it a "Compact Sport Wagon" if it makes you feel better. The PT Cruiser is actually classified by the government as a TRUCK. Quoting "Car and Driver" from June, 2000: Of course, depending on which aspect of the Cruiser one is contemplating, it's not a car at all. Because it has a flat rear load floor and removable rear seats, NHTSA views it as a truck, specifically a multipurpose vehicle sort of truck (which is another way of saying minivan), thus shifting its relatively high fuel-economy ratings (20/26 mpg city/highway with the manual transmission, 20/25 with the optional four-speed automatic) over to the truck side of the CAFE ledger.

quote:I don't think it can be removed. I think it's part of OBDIII and inside the CPU.From what I've read, it is part of the airbag sensor system. The same inputs that the system needs to decide whether to fire the airbags are the ones that Smokey needs to decide whether to prosecute you.

While on the topic... found this article:http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/55/31564.html

An estimated 10 million vehicles in the US are fitted with such recorders, which vehicle manufacturers began putting in vehicles in the 1990s to test air bag performance. Wow! I never knew that.