U.K. Motorists Take Dark View of EU Black-Box Plan

An overwhelming majority of motorists oppose European Union plans to require automakers to install so-called black boxes in all new and used vehicles.

An online survey by the U.K. car supermarket Motorpoint found 71.5% of respondents oppose regulations that would see black boxes installed starting in October 2015 to monitor individuals’ speed as well as driving habits.

Almost 2,000 people participated in the poll.

Motorpoint says in a statement the telematics technology would keep track, Big-Brother style, of how fast their customers drive, how hard they brake and how many journeys a year they take.

It is based on the eCall system used by a number of automakers to help emergency-services personnel respond more effectively to accidents. In the event of a crash, an eCall-equipped car automatically calls the nearest emergency center, even if no passenger is able to speak.

The EU says the system alerts emergency services to exactly where the accident happened.

It says emergency- response time is cut 50% in rural areas and 60% in developed areas.

The EU proposals for legislative acts foresee eCall seamlessly functioning throughout Europe by end of 2015, but it expects the deadlines for implementation more likely will be the end of 2017 or early 2018.

The EU says the system remains dormant until a serious accident happens and thus no tracking or transmission of data takes place during normal vehicle operation.

“Manufacturers shall ensure that the eCall in-vehicle system is not traceable and is not subject to any tracking before the eCall is triggered,” an EU briefing paper says.

“In the internal memory of the eCall in-vehicle system, retention of previous locations of the vehicle is permitted, but that data must be continuously removed to ensure that only data strictly necessary to specify the current location and the direction of travel are retained. This data must not be available outside the in-vehicle system to any entities before the eCall is triggered.”

Motorpoint claims anyone who refuses to have a black box fitted to an existing vehicle could see their insurance premiums spike as a result. Motorists will not be able to switch off the device.

“You can’t argue with the benefits of a device being used to make it easier for the emergency services to track a vehicle, but the results of our poll are definitive,” Motorpoint Managing Director Mark Carpenter says. “U.K. drivers don’t want costly, Big-Brother-style devices attached to their cars which have the potential to track their movements 24-7.”