All Cars To Have Black Boxes by 2014

By Alan Colmes

Much like airplanes, more and more cars have black boxes to help determine details of crashes, and the National Highway Safety Administration would like all cars to have them by 2014.

The boxes have long been used by car companies to assess the performance of their vehicles. But data stored in the devices is increasingly being used to identify safety problems in cars and as evidence in traffic accidents and criminal cases. And the trove of data inside the boxes has raised privacy concerns, including questions about who owns the information, and what it can be used for, even as critics have raised questions about its reliability.

To federal regulators, law enforcement authorities and insurance companies, the data is an indispensable tool to investigate crashes.