I agree on the federal offense possibility. It is my understanding that all cars produced for retail delivery in the US that have required by law air bags have the black box.
There is a solution: only drive cars built before air bags became required as the law does not require the retrofitting of air bags.
I don't believe disabling the black box is a federal offense. It is against the law for police or authorities of any kind to use your black box to gather information such as speeding without your permission.
Turns out you are correct. This link gives some history as well as an explanation of the intent of the Event Data Recorder. http://media.mgnetwork.com/blackbox/
GM was using primitive event data recorders in the 1970's when the first "Air Cushion" equipped full size models were available. I'd guess in 2013 they still have them. :banana:
Owner's manual section for Customer Information (it's section 13-14 for my 2013) has the EDR disclaimer information.
If you lose your "black box," you'll also lose all 10 of those air bags that could save lives. Is tampering with vehicle safety equipment a federal offense? It does put the vehicle in a state of non-conformity with federal motor vehicle safety standards...
This may sound strange coming from me, but I just can not get concerned about the black box. Maybe in the future when it keeps 30 or 60 minutes of data instead of the several seconds before impact it keeps now, but until then I will save my concerns for OnStar and GPS and carrying a smart phone in a car.
Since an on-board event data recorder (EDR) was initially used by the NHTSA in 1991 to determine the information surrounding a vehicle crash, the automotive industry knew it was the wave of the future. An automotive computer captures a fantastic deal of data regarding your driving habits within its crash recorder, and even save your life by notifying authorities in the event of a crash, through a service like OnStar. But for some, the EDR represents an unnerving invasion of privacy - and they'll be standard in all automobiles by this year, claims the NHTSA.