Do cars record data when there’s an accident?

Imagine the following scenario: Car A and Car B have a head-on collision. According to the drivers, they were both not speeding and keeping their lane.

Both cars are inspected for damage as part of the investigation. But based on the physical evidence alone, it is impossible to conclude who was at fault. Now what?

EDR – Event Data Recorder

In a crash in which both drivers have different versions of the story, an event data recorder (EDR) can provide valuable information to help determine what really happened.
In most vehicles, EDRs functionality is embedded in the Airbag Control Module (ACM). It records data about a vehicle's movement and the driver’s actions preceding a crash. The EDR records data from various sources, including a vehicle's reliable (legally resilient) sensor technology in the seconds leading up to a crash.

Unlike a black box in an airplane, the EDR records a set amount of data, typically between five seconds before the crash and a short time after, depending on the make and model of the vehicle. With such defined data sets, accidents can be examined in an objective and standardized way for forensic purposes.

Specifically, the following data can be retrieved:

• Impact sequence, direction, and severity
• Reconstruction of vehicle motion path:
  • Pre-crash data (speed, brake pedal, accelerator pedal, engine speed, steering wheel angle and other data, depending on OEM)
  • Event data (status ABS, status ESP, status RS systems, status airbag, tire pressure)
  • Post-crash data (speed, brake pedal, engine speed, acceleration XYZ, delta-v XYZ)

Which cars are equipped with EDR?

EDRs have been standard for nearly all North American car manufacturers for years, and since mid-2022, car manufacturers in the EU must install an EDR in every new passenger car that comes onto the market. Since summer 2024, every newly registered vehicle in the European Union must be equipped with an activated EDR.

Benefits of leveraging the Event Data Recorder

With the EDR data as evidence, insurance companies, police departments, or prosecutors can make more informed decision regarding fault and liability for damages, using unbiased and accurate digital witness data that can help resolve disputes and ensure justice is served. This is particularly valuable for insurance companies with high-compensation cases.

Data from EDRs also help insurers detect fraudulent claims. For example, if an EDR indicates that the driver was traveling at excessive speed or engaging in other reckless behavior at the time of the accident, it may suggest the driver was at fault and trying to shift the blame onto someone else. It also helps to detect intentionally induced accidents.

EDR data can help insurers quickly determine fault and assess damages, which can speed up the claims process and reduce costs associated with claims handling. And police officers can read the data right at the accident spot, accelerate the process of determining guilt, and send the results to the prosecutor's office.

Why is data from EDRs not used more often in case of an accident to assign indemnity?

Even though more and more cars are equipped with an EDR, access to and the structure and content of data recorders isn’t yet standardized or specific to manufacturers or models. As a result, EDR data without specific readout devices, knowledge and expert translation is not possible. So, it’s currently rarely used in damage assessments.

That’s why msg global – together with its development partner, a leading accident forensics in Germany – has developed a solution for fully automated readout, standardization, and interpretation of EDR data using proprietary hardware and communication software. The process can be performed by any person in one minute. After reading the vehicle data, a harmonized and digitally quantified and qualified description of exactly what happened before, after, and at the moment of an incident is immediately available. Those digital traces can then be processed on our platform and optionally enriched with GPS data to get an idea about the incident spot to reconstruct accidents and identify faults and potential fraud.

A real example of crash data from EDR

In the accident scenario at the beginning of this blog, both cars were equipped with EDRs, which recorded data about the vehicles' movements in the moments before the crash.

The data shows Car A was traveling within the speed limit and was braking before the accident. Moreover, the steering wheel was in the right position to keep the lane.

Car B, however, had been traveling above the speed limit and had even accelerated before the crash. The steering wheel position of –38.0 degrees indicates that this car was invading the opposite lane.

This information indicates Car B was at fault since it was speeding, didn't brake and invaded the opposite lane.

Click here to download our one-pager and learn more about the msg.EDR solution.

Contact us at: msg.edr@msg-global.com