Car black box meaning

Car black boxes were originally created to determine the cause of airbags’ activation but they collect several data of the driver’s actions including the speed which has made them very useful for reconstruction of accidents. In fact, the data recorded by car black boxes has been already used as an important evidence in the courts.

Definition of black box (Entry 1 of 2) 1 : a usually complicated electronic device whose internal mechanism is usually hidden from or mysterious to the user broadly : anything that has mysterious or unknown internal functions or mechanisms 2 : a crashworthy device in aircraft for recording cockpit conversations and flight data

The first one was installed already in 1996, while as much as 70% to 85% of new cars come with installed car black boxes. These are not visible because they are under the seat or dashboard and activate about 5 seconds before the senses trigger activation of the airbags.