You have right to remain silent; your car may not

Raleigh police are building a second-degree murder case against a man accused of drunken driving in part by using a small on-board computer in the man's car. If he's like most people, he didn't know it was even there.

Investigators obtained a search warrant that allowed them to extract information from an instrument known as an event data recorder in the 2001 Cadillac Deville that Kenya Teverris Alston, 31, was driving when he struck a Honda in the early hours of March 1. The driver of the Honda, Matthew Kraft, 21, was killed.

The event data recorder is a computer under a vehicle's floorboard. It stores information immediately before and after a crash, such as how fast the vehicle was traveling and whether the driver braked or was using his seat belt, turn signals and headlights. It is similar to the black box found on aircraft.

Sixty-four percent of motor vehicles on the road in the United States are equipped with the recorders, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which is responsible for vehicle safety and motor vehicle laws. But auto manufacturers don't advertise the devices, and many drivers aren't aware of them, dealers say. Car sellers will be federally required by 2011 to tell new car buyers whether there is a recorder in the vehicle.

"It's an invaluable tool for research," said Rae Tyson, public affairs chief with the NHTSA. "But there are other issues dealing with privacy that have to be resolved by the courts. Until then, we are not going to require auto manufacturers to equip their cars with EDRs."

Depending on future federal court rulings, much more sophisticated recorders could recall a driver's medical condition before, during and after a crash. Some recorders in NASCAR and Indy 500 series cars can collect a race driver's medical information, Tyson said.

"The EDRs in race cars are far more sophisticated than the ones in passenger vehicles," he said.

The auto industry's primary goal in installing the devices is occupant safety, said Jim Harris, owner of Harris Technical Services in Port St. Lucie, Fla., which provides reconstruction analysis in court cases involving auto accidents.

Manufacturers have relied on test dummies to help determine the safety of their vehicles, Harris explained. Now, with the recorders, carmakers can use "real world data, with real people involved."

"We can't stop an accident, but, with the EDR, we can record it and see how we can improve it," Harris said.

Black boxes

But some question the need to equip cars to gather information that can be used against the owner in legal matters.

Early last year, the nonprofit National Motorist Association Foundation helped write a bill in Congress aimed at what it considers the potential misuse of auto "black boxes," including cases such as Alston's. On its Web site, the association, while not objecting to safety research with EDRs, disparaged the "self-surveillance" at the expense of drivers, who may not even know the device is in their vehicles.

Harris called the privacy issue a "red herring" that should not be likened to knowing a person's Social Security number or medical records.

"It doesn't record who's driving or where you've been or when you got there, or even if you were drinking and ran a red light," Harris said. "If a vehicle is going down the road doing 100 mph in a 35-mph speed zone, is that private to you?"

A sampling of sales managers at dealerships along Raleigh's Capital Boulevard found few have even heard of the recorders. Those who had are more likely to tout other safety features, such as GM's OnStar, an emergency roadside assistance programs, said Steve Sobek, sales manager at Saturn of Raleigh.