I was under the impression these have been installed in just about every vehicle for quite a number of years now.

 

Major manufacturers like Ford and GM have had EDRs for at least the last 15 years. Infiniti has since 2012 and I believe they are made by Bosch. They are standard equipment on all cars now in the US from what I've read.

EDR data access is governed by the Driver Privacy Act.

"The federal Driver Privacy Act of 2015 was enacted on December 4, 2015. It stated that the owner or lessee of a motor vehicle is the owner of the data collected by the EDR. In order to access that data, an investigator would need to (1) be authorized by a court or judicial or administrative authority, subject to the standards for admission into evidence; (2) obtain the written, electronic or recorded audio consent of the vehicle owner or lessee; (3) be conducting an investigation or inspection authorized by federal law; (4) demonstrate it is necessary to facilitate medical care in response to a car accident; or (5) be conducting traffic safety research, so long as the personal information of the owner/lessee is not disclosed."

 

Major manufacturers like Ford and GM have had EDRs for at least the last 15 years. Infiniti has since 2012 and I believe they are made by Bosch.

Seriously? Infiniti only since 2012? I didn't realize Nissan was such a antiquated, backwater type of company.

 

EDR helped out big time in a case in my town. Off duty cop who had been drinking hit a kid on a bicycle and killed him, in his private car. Stated he wasn't speeding, the EDR recorded that he hit the kid at 72mph in a 35mph zone. Spent 5.5 yrs in prison.

 

A feel good story (except for the kid). As much as I like and support law enforcement, bad cops are the lowest of the low! They are granted great power. When they betray that trust, I can't say here what I think should be done to them.

 

I've been aware of it though not really captured my interest. I know this kind of system doesn't record / log data full-time but only certain amount data for X number of seconds and when only triggered by certain condition or event - just like a motion / sound detection feature of a camera, for instance. Those trigger conditions are unknown (at least to me) but I would guess speed is one of them. Then again, I'm sure it just overwrites the previously recorded data.

 

Wasn't certain but I am not at all surprised. That info is a double edged sword. It can be of help in a collision, or not.

 

Manufacturers have been storing crash event data for a real long time. If it's not in a standalone module, it's done in the Airbag module.

 

To get back into OP's topic, you're wrong about the dates Nissan have been using EDRs. They've been for a while now. In my family there are few Nissan vehicles and I can tell you, from my 06 350z, 08 Altima coupe and 09 370z, that all of them have EDRs. Info is in the manual, the last pages.

 

I should have been more concise about EDRs. While there may have been rudimentary EDRs in Nissans before 2012, the ability to extract and translate usable data from them hadn't been standardized. Nissan (and Infiniti) vehicles manufactured before 2012 are considered "non-CDR" vehicles as their data can not be downloaded by the Bosch/Vetronix CDR (Crash Data Retrieval) system. That Bosch CDR system is the industry standard for vehicle crash investigators and if the vehicle in question is outside the Bosch CDR application set, the crash investigators won't pursue EDR data retrieval as the data can be incomplete or incompletely translated.

No doubt Nissan has their own proprietary data retrieval tools that can access their non-CDR vehicle's data but it can be compromised when provided to other parties because of the same reasons I listed above.

So technically, you are correct but from a litigation standpoint, any resultant translation and interpretation of EDR data must be stated with reasonable engineering certainty and must meet clear tests before they are admissible in court. Non-CDR vehicle data could be considered compromised if the data retrieval is incomplete or incompletely translated by retrieval tools as stated above. So, in essence, pre-2012 Nissan/Infiniti EDR data isn't considered as reliable as post-2012 EDR data.