LegiStorm

Summary:

An event data recorder (EDR) is an electronic sensor installed in a motor vehicle that records certain technical information about a vehicle's operational performance for a few seconds immediately prior to and during a crash. Although over 90% of all new cars and light trucks sold in the United States are equipped with them, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is proposing that all new light vehicles have EDRs installed in the future. Under previously adopted NHTSA rules, these devices have to capture at least 15 types of information related to the vehicle's performance in the few seconds just before and immediately after a crash serious enough to result in deployment of airbags. EDRs have the potential to make a significant contribution to highway safety. For example, EDR data showed that in several cases a Chevrolet Cobalt's ignition switch turned the engine off while the car was still moving, causing the car to lose power steering and crash; the data directly contributed to the manufacturer's decision to recall 2.6 million vehicles. EDR data could also be used, sometimes in conjunction with other vehicle technologies, to record in the few seconds before an accident such data as driver steering input, seat occupant size, and sound within a car. The privacy of information collected by EDRs is a matter of state law, except that federal law bars NHTSA from disclosing personally identifiable information. The privacy aspects of EDRs and the ownership of the data they generate has been the subject of legislation in Congress since at least 2004. The House passed a floor amendment to the transportation appropriations bill in 2012 that would have prohibited use of federal funds to develop an EDR mandate, but it was not enacted. The Senate passed two EDR-related provisions in its surface transportation reauthorization bill (S. 1813) in 2012, mandating EDRs on new cars sold after 2015 and directing a Department of Transportation study of privacy issues; they were not included in the final bill. In the 113th Congress, two privacy-related EDR bills have been introduced. H.R. 2414, sponsored by Representative Capuano, would require manufacturers to post a window sticker in each new car, stating that there is an EDR in the vehicle, where it is located, the type of information it records, and the availability of that information to law enforcement officials. It would prohibit the sale of vehicles after 2015 unless vehicle owners can control the recording of information on the EDR. The legislation also states that any data recorded by an EDR is the vehicle owner's property and can be retrieved only with the owner's consent, in response to a court order, or by a vehicle repair technician. It is pending in the House Energy and Commerce and Judiciary Committees. In April 2014, the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation ordered reported S. 1925, the Driver Privacy Act, sponsored by Senators Hoeven and Klobuchar. The bill would limit access to EDR data to the vehicle owner or lessee. Exceptions would allow access if authorized by judicial or administrative authorities for the retrieval of admissible evidence, with the informed written consent of owners or lessees for any purpose, and for safety investigations, emergency response purposes, or traffic safety research. If used for safety research, information that would identify individual owners and vehicle identification numbers would have to be redacted. The bill requires NHTSA to conduct a study to determine the amount of time EDRs should capture and record data, and to issue regulations on that subject within two years of submitting the study to Congress. In addition, on June 10, 2014, during consideration of H.R. 4745, the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act for 2015, the House adopted by voice vote an amendment sponsored by Representative Yoho that would bar use of federal funds to enforce regulations mandating passenger vehicle EDRs.