Data recorders for accident investigation

In 1989 the European Commission sponsored work to investigate the design of a recorder for road vehicles which could offer benefits similar to those associated with the `black box´ fitted to aircraft. DRACO (Driving Accident Co-ordinating Observer) was the name of the project which developed a specification for an accident data recorder (ADR) for use on road vehicles. A subsequent project called SAMOVAR (Safety Assessment Monitoring On-Vehicle with Automatic Recording) field tested a low cost implementation of this design. This paper describes the main features of the specification and design of the `first version´ ADR together with some results. The ADR is a specific task orientated complete instrumentation system which includes software for the off-line processing of the recorded data