Tom Udall: “I rise today to introduce legislation that I believe will help improve the safety of automobile drivers and passengers.…”

“I rise today to introduce legislation that I believe will help improve the safety of automobile drivers and passengers. The legislation, the Vehicle Safety Improvements Act, would, among other things, require all automobiles sold in the United States be equipped with an event data recorder, an EDR. Event data recorders provide a report of a vehicle's operating statistics--things like the throttle position and speed of the vehicle--during the last seconds before and immediately after a crash. They serve a similar function as the black boxes that are in each airplane by documenting critical information leading up to an incident. Unlike black boxes, an EDR doesn't record the voices of the vehicle occupants. It simply preserves the vehicle's internal operating data. The information stored by an EDR can be crucial in determining what happened in the last few seconds prior to a crash and the moments immediately after. If a vehicle doesn't have a recorder, or if the data is not easily accessible, this information can be lost.”