Connecticut Law Review: Silent Witnesses, New Insights ‘Black box’ recorder

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seanhaight
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Connecticut Law Review: Silent Witnesses, New Insights ‘Black box’ recorder

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http://www.ctlawtribune.com/getarticle.aspx?ID=42170
It’s only about the size of a pack of cigarettes, but the “black box” or event data recorder (EDR) that is being built into more and more modern cars and trucks could become an information gold mine for personal injury lawyers.

Over the past two decades, hundreds of thousands of vehicles have rolled off the assembly lines with EDRs installed and fully functional, capable of printing out how fast the vehicle was traveling before the air bags were deployed, when and if the brakes were applied, and how far the gas pedal was depressed, second by second.

Still, you’ll find scarce mention of these devices among the dozens of car crash lawsuits summarized in the Connecticut Law Tribune’s sixth annual Personal Injury Yearbook, which is included with this edition of the newspaper. But just wait a few years —the U.S. Senate voted last month to mandate black boxes be built into all vehicles sold in America beginning in 2015.

In most Connecticut accidents, even those with serious injuries, the EDR data — even when available — is not retrieved says attorney William Bloss, of Bridgeport’s Koskoff, Koskoff & Bieder. But lately, he and other Connecticut personal injury lawyers have been working to make an EDR request part of the work-up of major personal injury cases.

Bloss’s experiences in one particular case offer some insights into how big a factor EDR evidence might be in the future. (continued)
http://www.ctlawtribune.com/getarticle.aspx?ID=42170
Sean Haight, PhD

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