Most people have heard about those legendary black boxes that are used in airplanes to determine what goes wrong if there is an accident. These black boxes are virtually indestructible, making them effective data capturers in even the worst accident conditions. This black box technology could be of excellent use to the car insurance companies. Quite a large portion of a collision is hearsay, and the auto insurance companies have to conduct thorough investigations into accidents in order to process a claim accurately. Incorporating black box technology into vehicles will save them a lot of time in the investigation.
A black box is normally not even black, but orange. The outermost shell of the black box is made out of titanium or steel which is designed to survive an intense impact or pressure. The second layer is for insulation whilst the last is a thermal block which protects against fire and heat. This makes the black box very hardy against extreme crashes, the hottest of fire infernos and many other accident conditions. The insulation is effective for water crashes, so that even if the plane is completely submerged, the black box will protect all its recorded data. This makes for one very hardly and useful data capturing tool in airplanes and any other vehicle of travel.
So, with some alterations to change it from being used in an airplane to being used in a motor vehicle, what could a black box do? And how will this help the insurance investigation?
Firstly, a black box measures the speed the vehicle was going at the time of the accident. This will help the insurance company determine whether or not the driver was being reckless and driving above the speed limit at the time of the accident. Driving over the speed limit attributes to a large number of motor vehicle collisions.
Next, a black box will record which pedals and operating devices were utilized in a certain period of time prior to the accident. This would help the car insurance company determine whether or not the accident was caused by driver error or not. If a brake pedal was pressed at the wrong time, or alternatively, gears were changed incorrectly, then it would affect the incidence of the accident.
The black box will also record any other diagnostic facts about your motor vehicle. It would record any of the details of the mechanical functions of your car. This helps to capture whether or not there was a malfunction on the actual vehicle itself that caused the accident.
It is easy to see why a black box in your vehicle would be valuable for a car insurance company when they are processing your claim. There are already some motor vehicles which have incorporated this black box technology. Unfortunately, a lot of this recorded data was unreliable, and is still in testing stages to be successfully incorporated into motor vehicles. Once it is up and running, it will be extremely useful to the car insurance companies and will thus create a more trouble free claim process for the insured.
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