In a roundtable interview with reporters Monday  General Motors' new vice president for government relations, Robert E. Ferguson, stated that his company backed pending legislation that would mandate black boxes in cars.  

The need for black boxes is showcased by incidents like the case of a 2008 Toyota Prius in California that supposedly accelerated uncontrollably.  Analysis by government investigators showed that the pattern of brake wear did not match the consistent braking that the driver claimed.  However, without an explicit record of what happened, the truth can't be proven; in fact wild theories such as failure due to cosmic rays have even been floated.

An event data recorder (EDR) could help depending on its features, the capabilities of its readers, and the availability of its readers.  As it turns out, the second generation 2008 Prius does have an EDR, but officially it only records data such as vehicle speed in "crash" or "near crash" events.  It reportedly does not record vehicle speed or braking during normal operation unless explicitly programmed to do so for testing purposes.

GM first deployed EDRs in the 1990 model year and by 1995 they were standard in GM's light vehicles.  GM, like Toyota, offers a device that allows the limited reading of its vehicles' EDRs.  GM's EDRs don't necessarily offer much more information than Toyota's in their current form, but GM supports proposals to expand the information made available by the EDR.

Describes Ferguson, "[EDRs are] essential to ensure consumers are being properly protected in their vehicles.  There can be a discrepancy in what a driver claims happened and what NHTSA concludes happened. This would mandate equipment that would remove any human emotion or bias to provide much more precise data."

Members of Congress are currently working on legislation to mandate expanded EDR abilities and mandated inclusion in vehicles.  The legislation could air within a month.  Comments Ferguson, "The prospects that we end up with some additional safety legislation or regulation are very high."

Ferguson appeared to take a bit of a swipe at Toyota, saying "[If] a manufacturer takes a hide-the-ball, not transparent (approach), it's hard to design a system that gets around that."

However, he says that he meant no affront to Toyota, commenting that he has a "very positive" impression of Toyota vehicles and offering, "For the sake of the American driving public, I hope Toyota solves its safety issues quickly."

One issue that was not raised by Ferguson about EDRs, but is salient in the debate, is privacy.  If EDR capabilities are expanded, they could be used in traffic incidents to determine guilt.  They could even be used, in theory, even to remotely catch speeders and send them tickets.  Such issues would surely invite debate, but they may be ignored in the wake of the fallout from Toyota's safety issues.