Does your car have a Black Box?

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) announced yesterday that "automakers must inform customers if their vehciles are equipped with an Event Data Recorder (EDR)."

The new federal rule, which takes effect starting with model year 2011 cars, will require automakers who have chosen to install EDRs to note in the owner’s manual that the safety monitoring equipment has been installed.

The rule also includes new requirements designed to ensure that the data collected by EDRs can be used to improve highway safety. For example, the rule requires EDRs to be more durable to protect data during a crash. The rule also requires automakers to collect the same type of crash data if they chose to install an EDR (see attached list for all data elements).

A pdf of the full notice can be found here.

via /.