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Black Box Delivers Gold
Aired November 25, 2003 - 15:08 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: In airline crashes, the black box often holds clues to what went wrong. Usually, it's crucial. You may not know it, but many cars now have a similar device. And sometimes they're silver, but that's not the point. They call it a black box because it holds a lot of data.
Our Mike Brooks reports, sometimes, they lead to gold.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I got hit by a funeral hearse on Friday the 13th.
MIKE BROOKS, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST (voice-over): Three years ago, in Arlington Heights, Illinois, Police Officer Chuck Tiedge's squad car was broadsided by a hearse that ran a red light.
CHUCK TIEDGE, FORMER POLICE OFFICER: I was given less than a 5 percent chance to live.
BROOKS: He lay in a coma for 26 days.
TIEDGE: I woke up a month later in the hospital on Election Day.
BROOKS: His back was broken, both hips, his collar bone, a rib.
TIEDGE: I still have a considerable amount of pain every day. I'll have that forever.
BROOKS: The hearse driver said he blacked out at the wheel. But a so-called black box in the hearse, a data recorder few people know about, said otherwise. The upward line at the left shows the driver pushed down on the gas pedal to run the light. The vertical line at the right means he hit the breaks only at the last second. Tiedge sued the funeral home.
His lawyer:
BROOKS (on camera): What did the data recorder mean to you?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Gotcha.
BROOKS: What was the final settlement?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Officer Tiedge received in excess of $10 million. BROOKS (voice-over): The data recorder is part of the sensor in every vehicle that triggers the air bag in a crash. In this Buick, the black box -- it's really silver -- is hidden under the carpet.
(on camera): Could you show us exactly where it is?
RICK DOWSETT, VIRGINIA STATE POLICE: Sure. The recorder is right in this box here.
BROOKS (voice-over): It captures a five-second history of speed, acceleration, braking.
(on camera): How would someone know they had one in their car?
DOWSETT: You would have to read the owner's manual.
BROOKS (voice-over): Most people don't. An insurance industry survey shows, 60 percent of the public does not know about the boxes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Really? I did not know.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I had no idea that it was that high-tech.
BROOKS: The same survey found almost half the people are against using the box to investigate accidents.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Not if the cops can tell us how fast we're going.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't think that's really good. I think it's an invasion of my privacy.
BROOKS (on camera): Right now, the data can be easily be retrieved in only about 30 percent of all new vehicles, mainly GM modems. But access to that data is growing. And so is its use in criminal, as well as civil cases.
(voice-over): In the snow last Christmas Eve near Rockville, Maryland, a pickup truck crossed the center line. The head-on crash killed the other driver. But the weather left no skid marks to determine speed.
CPL. GARY LEWIS, MONTGOMERY COUNTY POLICE DEPARTMENT: So I couldn't tell you whether he was accelerating or decelerating, rotating, skidding, flipping, or anything else prior to the wreck.
BROOKS: The data recorder answered that.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This particular one came out of the GMC pickup truck.
BROOKS: On the computer graph, speed is red.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The red line starts at 70.
BROOKS: That's 30 miles over the limit. The pickup driver pleaded guilty for hit and run and manslaughter.
(on camera): The crash data recorder made it a slam dunk.
DOUGLAS GANSLER, STATE'S ATTORNEY: The crash data recorder made this case a slam dunk and every other case like it a slam dunk.
TIEDGE: If you don't have anything to hide, you don't have anything to worry about.
BROOKS: For Chuck Tiedge, it's not a question of privacy. It's an answer he needed.
TIEDGE: That black box spoke the truth for me when I couldn't.
BROOKS: Mike Brooks, CNN, Arlington Heights, Illinois.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired November 25, 2003 - 15:08 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: In airline crashes, the black box often holds clues to what went wrong. Usually, it's crucial. You may not know it, but many cars now have a similar device. And sometimes they're silver, but that's not the point. They call it a black box because it holds a lot of data.
Our Mike Brooks reports, sometimes, they lead to gold.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I got hit by a funeral hearse on Friday the 13th.
MIKE BROOKS, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST (voice-over): Three years ago, in Arlington Heights, Illinois, Police Officer Chuck Tiedge's squad car was broadsided by a hearse that ran a red light.
CHUCK TIEDGE, FORMER POLICE OFFICER: I was given less than a 5 percent chance to live.
BROOKS: He lay in a coma for 26 days.
TIEDGE: I woke up a month later in the hospital on Election Day.
BROOKS: His back was broken, both hips, his collar bone, a rib.
TIEDGE: I still have a considerable amount of pain every day. I'll have that forever.
BROOKS: The hearse driver said he blacked out at the wheel. But a so-called black box in the hearse, a data recorder few people know about, said otherwise. The upward line at the left shows the driver pushed down on the gas pedal to run the light. The vertical line at the right means he hit the breaks only at the last second. Tiedge sued the funeral home.
His lawyer:
BROOKS (on camera): What did the data recorder mean to you?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Gotcha.
BROOKS: What was the final settlement?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Officer Tiedge received in excess of $10 million. BROOKS (voice-over): The data recorder is part of the sensor in every vehicle that triggers the air bag in a crash. In this Buick, the black box -- it's really silver -- is hidden under the carpet.
(on camera): Could you show us exactly where it is?
RICK DOWSETT, VIRGINIA STATE POLICE: Sure. The recorder is right in this box here.
BROOKS (voice-over): It captures a five-second history of speed, acceleration, braking.
(on camera): How would someone know they had one in their car?
DOWSETT: You would have to read the owner's manual.
BROOKS (voice-over): Most people don't. An insurance industry survey shows, 60 percent of the public does not know about the boxes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Really? I did not know.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I had no idea that it was that high-tech.
BROOKS: The same survey found almost half the people are against using the box to investigate accidents.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Not if the cops can tell us how fast we're going.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't think that's really good. I think it's an invasion of my privacy.
BROOKS (on camera): Right now, the data can be easily be retrieved in only about 30 percent of all new vehicles, mainly GM modems. But access to that data is growing. And so is its use in criminal, as well as civil cases.
(voice-over): In the snow last Christmas Eve near Rockville, Maryland, a pickup truck crossed the center line. The head-on crash killed the other driver. But the weather left no skid marks to determine speed.
CPL. GARY LEWIS, MONTGOMERY COUNTY POLICE DEPARTMENT: So I couldn't tell you whether he was accelerating or decelerating, rotating, skidding, flipping, or anything else prior to the wreck.
BROOKS: The data recorder answered that.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This particular one came out of the GMC pickup truck.
BROOKS: On the computer graph, speed is red.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The red line starts at 70.
BROOKS: That's 30 miles over the limit. The pickup driver pleaded guilty for hit and run and manslaughter.
(on camera): The crash data recorder made it a slam dunk.
DOUGLAS GANSLER, STATE'S ATTORNEY: The crash data recorder made this case a slam dunk and every other case like it a slam dunk.
TIEDGE: If you don't have anything to hide, you don't have anything to worry about.
BROOKS: For Chuck Tiedge, it's not a question of privacy. It's an answer he needed.
TIEDGE: That black box spoke the truth for me when I couldn't.
BROOKS: Mike Brooks, CNN, Arlington Heights, Illinois.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
