Is Vehicle Black Box Data Useful In Criminal Cases?

How are vehicle black boxes used to defend a criminal case? Well, first of all, let’s define a vehicle black box. It’s a little-known type thing, some s of you might know about it. It’s an event data recorder, and if you get in a crash, you crash your car, it’s going to record a lot of parameters of what happened just before the crash. It’s going to record whether you apply the brakes, your speed, your angle of travel, and angle of the steering wheel, whether you’re accelerating and decelerating. This can be very useful. You know, what is your charge of the dangerous driving causing death? And the crown is making all sorts of allegations about your speed and what you’re doing, the direction of travel, et cetera. Well, the event data recorder could completely refute it. I’ve seen those type of cases where the Crown has had to withdraw the charge. We’ve also defended cases where we were able to use the data to show that there was a reasonable doubt that the crown’s witnesses weren’t quite accurate about their testimony. You know, if someone’s testifying, what a traumatic event. They might not be lying, but they might not be reliable and accurate. We were able to show that in many cases. Now, of course, conversely, event data recorder can be used by the crown to completely support their case. I’ve been involved in prosecutions, you know, defending cases where the crown was able to produce the data, which really hurt our case, because it was showing that the client was going extremely fast, not applying the brakes, etc, and was driving dangerously, and it left us no choice but to ultimately plead guilty, because we ultimately had no defence. So, it’s very useful information. It’s not the only information, because it’s still limited. I mean, it can’t describe all the driving. It’s a limited snapshot just before the crash, but in Canadian courtrooms, it’s increasingly being used. And by the way, certainly the defence can access this. It’s your car, so that’s your privacy interest. You can hire an expert to retrieve it and get the data, and hopefully it supports your version of that so that you can defend it, conversely and might not. And now, on the other hand, if the crown wants to use it, the police would have had to obtain a proper search warrant for it, and got the data in that manner. So it’s used in court. But a search warrant is essential. They have to have reasonable probable grounds to get it. Sometimes you can attach a search warrant, that they didn’t draft it properly, or they didn’t have reasonable problem of grounds, but in most cases, the police will have grounds post a crash to get your event data recorder. So, it cuts both ways. It could help your case or it could hurt your case. But rest assured, if you’re charged with impaired causing bodily harm, death or dangerous driving and there’s some sort of crash, etc, the crown’s likely to access it through the police and your lawyer should consider doing it if they don’t, because it might help you. You never know. So that’s it for today. And on that topic, the event data recorder or black vehicle box it’s becoming increasingly used in Canadian courtrooms. Thank you for watching our video. We are absolutely committed to bringing the best possible criminal and DUI educational videos. If you found this video helpful, please like it and subscribe to our YouTube channel. If you’ve been charged with the criminal offense in Ontario and require our services, please click on the link in the description below.