Drive safely. Big Brother is watching

Came across an article on Project Amulett, which is a research working group promoting active safety in avoiding vehicle-pedestrian collision. The project is funded by the Bavarian State Ministry for Economic Affairs, Infrastructure, Transport and Technology. The working group is made up of :
i) BMW Forschung und Technik GmbH, a research subsidiary of BMW AG
ii) Continental Safety Engineering International GmbH, subsidiary of Tier-One automotive parts supplier Continental AG
iii) The Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits
iv) Institute for High Frequency Engineering at the Technical University of Munich
v) ZENTEC GmbH


In short, the research group's goal is to develop a viable "Car-2-X Communication Protocol," with X supposedly to denote a tiny radio device carried by / embedded into an everyday used device carried by the pedestrian. With this, the vehicle should be able to provide ample warning, and if necessary, make evasive action to avoid a collision. You can read more about it here.

But this post is not about Project Amulett, but rather the greater topic of potential legal implications of active driving assistance on OEMs. I had a dinner with a certain manager from German manufacturer and we were talking about this topic. The simpleton mind of mine would simply brush this off as that of Neo-Luddism. But someone at his position has a genuine reason to be concerned of the direction that OEMs are taking in removing more and more driving duties away from the driver.

We now have night-vision driving aids, lane change monitors, adaptive cruise control and what not, and there will come a time when someone, most probably an American, hits a pedestrian, pleads innocence that it was the car's fault, that system did not work, and it was not his fault, and they want to sue to manufacturer. Toyota's over-sensationalized Lexus GX 460's ESC issue and the bankrupt guy who claimed his second-generation Prius was out of control is a good example.

In America, they are plenty of blood sucking lawyers willing to take your case, however ridiculous it is. The court system is very efficient and it is easy to file a suit. If you win, you can retire for life. Got a lung cancer from your years of smoking, sue the tobacco company. Spilled hot coffee on yourself, sue McDonald's.

But premium manufacturers have little choice. They need to keep cramming ultra high tech features into their cars to justify the high price, and also for marketing reasons - to lay claim that they are the leader and that they make the best stuff. Never mind if they are useful or not. Case in point - there is really no significant benefit in having a 8-speed transmission. But Lexus and BMW put it in anyway. Six is more than sufficient, 7 is bordering on excess and 8 is just overkill. It was done purely for bragging rights.


Of course, car manufacturers are not sitting idle. And here is the scary part. Did you know that many of the high end, especially high performance cars have a "black-box" like function similar to an aircraft, built in to the engine computer? It records every single thing from your speed, throttle position, steering angle, brake pedal pressure, and inputs from the many sensors that monitor the vehicle's dynamics. But for privacy concerns, the data can only be extracted using the manufacturer's own proprietary software / hardware. It is included to protect the manufacturer against any legal liabilities, but technically it is there to assist "trouble shooting and diagnostics." And if your vehicle has a built-in GPS. It knows exactly where you have been going, how fast and how aggressive have you been driving. It also knows if you have been wearing your seatbelt or not, so that manufacturer can properly defend itself because some drivers have an unexplained desire to see their airbags deploy in all their full glory at the slightest car crash. Read about these morons here.

But it also for non-safety related use, warranty claims for example. So if you've blown the engine of a high performance car because your idiot right foot have been banging on the rev-limiter, don't bother running to the manufacturer to claim warranty replacement. They know exactly at what speed, what gear position you were in right before you blew the engine to bits. Remember that Nissan incorporated a feature in the GT-R that ties the vehicle's GPS navigation to the engine computer? Once the GPS detects that you have driven into a racing circuit, you will be prompted with a message to warn that competitive use of the vehicle will void manufacturer's warranty, but it will also remove the speed limiter. Again the speed limiter is there for legal reasons. Understand that non-Japanese market cars already have the speed limiter removed on factory, but you can be damn sure that it is still recording every single movement of the foot and hands at the controls.