A Black Box Tells Just the Facts

Most court cases about auto accidents involve disputes about facts, not the law. That means lawyers argue mostly about how fast a car was going, who didn’t stop at the red light, whether a driver crossed over the double yellow line and similar questions.

Less time is spent debating legal niceties, such as jury instructions or rules of evidence.

One innovative idea to reduce the time and expense of re-creating the scene of an auto accident in the courtroom was recently suggested by Harold Weston, a Los Angeles lawyer: a “black box” for automobiles, just like those in the cockpits of commercial airplanes.

Weston offered his proposal in a legal publication, the Los Angeles Daily Journal. The black box would include a running video camera that would record events just the way the driver sees them.

A black box could also record speed, acceleration, braking, turn signals and even whether the seat belt was fastened. Perhaps the device that triggers the air bag could tell the black box that an accident has occurred, Weston noted.

“If we are going to have dashboards that look like cockpits, shifters that look like throttles and turbos that sound like turbines, we might as well add the black boxes to complete the whole image,” he wrote.

In fact, there is such a device, invented by Joseph A. Michetti, who lives in Ventura. A patent for it was issued in 1989 and it is now being developed for marketing, including a five-minute video about the device, called a “vero-vedi.” It has not only one video camera but two--one directed forward and one directed rearward.

Of course, a video recording of an accident, even if it captures all the relevant details, will not reduce the number of accidents, but it could cut down the work of lawyers and judges--and give juries a much better factual base upon which to make decisions.

It could also settle insurance claims that might otherwise wind up in court. If an insurance company can see who was at fault, there is less likely to be a courtroom battle.

Pictures of “facts” can be admissible in the courtroom. We are all accustomed to seeing photographs offered as evidence. And some lawyers now make video recordings of the signing of a will.

A video camera in every car might sound expensive in the short run, but it is also preventive. It could save lots of insurance company, lawyer and court time.