Category Archives: Traffic

The battle over right to repair is a fight over your car’s data

by Leah Chan Grinvald, University of Nevada, Las Vegas and Ofer Tur-Sinai, Ono Academic College

Cars are no longer just a means of transportation. They have become rolling hubs of data communication. Modern vehicles regularly transmit information wirelessly to their manufacturers.

However, as cars grow “smarter,” the right to repair them is under siege.

As legal scholars, we find that the question of whether you and your local mechanic can tap into your car’s data to diagnose and repair spans issues of property rights, trade secrets, cybersecurity, data privacy and consumer rights. Policymakers are forced to navigate this complex legal landscape and ideally are aiming for a balanced approach that upholds the right to repair, while also ensuring the safety and privacy of consumers.

Understanding telematics and right to repair

Until recently, repairing a car involved connecting to its standard on-board diagnostics port to retrieve diagnostic data. The ability for independent repair shops – not just those authorized by the manufacturer – to access this information was protected by a state law in Massachusetts, approved by voters on Nov. 6, 2012, and by a nationwide memorandum of understanding between major car manufacturers and the repair industry signed on Jan. 15, 2014.

However, with the rise of telematics systems, which combine computing with telecommunications, these dynamics are shifting. Unlike the standardized onboard diagnostics ports, telematics systems vary across car manufacturers. These systems are often protected by digital locks, and circumventing these locks could be considered a violation of copyright law. The telematics systems also encrypt the diagnostic data before transmitting it to the manufacturer.

This reduces the accessibility of telematics information, potentially locking out independent repair shops and jeopardizing consumer choice – a lack of choice that can lead to increased costs for consumers.

Also, these telematics systems fall outside the scope of the original Massachusetts legislation and the nationwide memorandum of understanding. Recognizing the pivotal role diagnostic data plays in vehicle maintenance and repair, 75% of Massachusetts voters approved a ballot initiative on Nov. 3, 2020, to amend the state’s repair legislation. The amendment aims to ensure that the switch to telematics does not curtail an effective right to repair vehicles.

Specifically, the new law requires manufacturers selling telematics-equipped vehicles from the 2022 model year onward to provide car owners and their chosen repair shops access to the vehicle’s mechanical data through an interoperable, standardized and open-access telematics platform. Access should also encompass the ability to relay commands to components of the vehicle, if necessary, for maintenance, diagnostics and repair. Voters in Maine overwhelmingly approved a similar measure on Nov. 7, 2023.

However, the Massachusetts law was the subject of a lawsuit in federal court shortly after voters approved it in 2020, and it was suspended until June 1, 2023.

torso of a person holding a laptop computer in front of a car with its hood raised showing the engine compartment
Repairing cars today is as much about data as it is nuts and bolts, but increasingly, carmakers are locking that data away from car owners and independent repair shops. Nenad Stojkovic/Flickr, CC BY

Safety and privacy concerns

While the amendment makes significant strides toward creating a level playing field in vehicle maintenance and repair, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and car manufacturers have raised concerns about the legislation.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s main concern revolves around cybersecurity vulnerabilities with potential ramifications for vehicle safety, particularly the amendment’s provision for two-way access. A hacker could potentially take control of a car’s critical systems like accelerator, brakes and steering. Consequently, the agency recommended that car manufacturers not adhere to the law.

A related argument is that Massachusetts law is preempted by federal law. This forms the basis of a lawsuit filed in November 2020 by the Alliance for Automotive Innovation against Massachusetts’ attorney general.

The manufacturers assert that abiding by the state law would inevitably put them in breach of federal statutes and regulations, such as the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act. This lawsuit was pending as of press time, although the Massachusetts attorney general declared the law effective as of June 1, 2023.

Critics also emphasize the privacy concerns associated with open access to telematics systems. Granting third-party access could expose personal details, especially real-time location data. Advocacy groups warn that this information might be used as a tracking tool by potential abusers and others aiming to exploit people.

Recent developments

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and Massachusetts’ attorney general appear to have reached a consensus on alterations to the law, and the administration has dropped its recommendation that manufacturers disregard the law.

The primary adjustment would mean a telematics platform would be in compliance with the right to repair law if it were accessible within close proximity to the vehicle – for example, via Bluetooth. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration confirmed that this would be safer and align with federal law.

However, repair advocates have criticized this change as unduly restrictive. They argue that it gives authorized car dealers an unfair advantage over independent repair shops because the manufacturers allow the dealers to access the data remotely.

A new federal bill, the REPAIR Act, was recently introduced in the House, seeking to require vehicle manufacturers to provide access to in-vehicle diagnostic data, including telematics. This bill’s first hearing occurred on Sept. 27, 2023, and the bill passed out of subcommittee on Nov. 2.

Consumer Reports is among the organizations that support right-to-repair legislation.

Who owns your car’s data?

One issue left unresolved by the legislation is the ownership of vehicle data. A vehicle generates all sorts of data as it operates, including location, diagnostic, driving behavior, and even usage patterns of in-car systems – for example, which apps you use and for how long.

In recent years, the question of data ownership has gained prominence. In 2015, Congress legislated that the data stored in event data recorders belongs to the vehicle owner. This was a significant step in acknowledging the vehicle owner’s right over specific datasets. However, the broader issue of data ownership in today’s connected cars remains unresolved.

Whether data should be subject to property rights is a matter of debate. If deemed property, it seems logical to award these rights to the vehicle owner because the vehicle creates the data while used by the owner. However, through contractual terms and digital locks, manufacturers effectively secure control over the data.

The question of ownership aside, the crux of the matter for right to repair is guaranteed access for vehicle owners to their vehicles’ data.

A way forward

While concerns surrounding the Massachusetts legislation have merit, we believe they should not overshadow the need to preserve a competitive space in the auto repair sector and preserve the right to repair. This matters not only for safeguarding consumers’ autonomy and ensuring competitive pricing, but also for minimizing environmental waste from prematurely discarded vehicles and parts.

The hope is that policymakers and the industry can strike a balance: upholding the right to repair without compromising safety and privacy. One possibility is developing tools that segregate sensitive personal information from mechanical data.

Ultimately, a successful implementation of the new law in Massachusetts may pave the way for a renewed nationwide memorandum of understanding, capturing the essence of the original memorandum of understanding and preserving the right to repair cars in the face of rapidly advancing technologies.The Conversation


Republished with permission under license from The Conversation.

White Granite City Police Officers allow dog to maul unarmed Black Teen

"Dogs have served as instruments of violence in incidents dating back to the days of slavery, and as recently as the Black Lives Matter protests." – Mauled – When Police Dogs are Weapons

Parker High School student Walter Gadsden being attacked by dogs during a 1963 civil rights demonstration in downtown Birmingham, Alabama.

Four white Granite City, IL police officers allowed a police dog to maul a law abiding unarmed black teenager while conducting a traffic stop, then they lied about what happened in the official police report.

Devondrea Williams was in the back of a truck his cousin was driving with a friend when police pulled them over around 2:30 a.m. Monday, July 19th. Williams said police never explained why they were pulling them over. According to Williams, police asked for his information and asked him to get out of the truck. Before Williams could comply an officer grabbed his arm and several other officers pushed him against the truck.

Williams explained, “and then I see the dog out of the corner of my eye and then the dog bites me.” The teen said he was bitten by the dog four or five times. When the dog latched onto the teen’s leg and would not let go, officers finally tased the animal in order to get the K-9 to let him go. Williams told KMOV after he was bitten by the animal, “I ain’t never screamed like that a day in my life.”

Regeana Canada, who lives close to where the incident took place, saw police lights and filmed the encounter on her phone. She said the dog was latched onto Williams for eight or nine minutes.

Granite City Police Capt. Gary Brooks provided an account of what transpired to KMOV in a statement, “Officers conducted a traffic stop of a vehicle with some of the individuals involved in the incident.  At this time, officers attempted to continue to gather facts to ascertain what exactly had taken place,” the statement said. “During the traffic stop, an individual obstructed the investigation and resisted arrest. They were taken into custody with the assistance of a police K-9. This investigation is still ongoing and as a result, no further information can be given at this time regarding this matter.”

Canada, however, refuted the captain’s claims of resistance. “No, he did not resist arrest at all,” said Canada.

Why wasn't the dog under anyone's controlled and allowed to run free? Regardless, why would it take police officers more than 8 minutes to stop their dog from attacking an innocent person? I can't imagine a situation where a private citizen watches their dog mauling someone for eight minutes and not being arrested. It's way beyond time to abolish qualified immunity for police officers. The officer responsible for that dog needs to be fired and any officers who lied need to be fired and prosecuted!

Under Illinios law, 720 ILCS 5/26-1(a)(2-10) , filing a false police report falls under the Disorderly Conduct statute. According to 720 ILCS 5/26-1(a)(4), a person commits disorderly conduct when he knowingly transmits to the police department a false report that a crime has been committed knowing at the time of the transmission that there is no reasonable ground for it. The penalty for such an offense is a Class 4 felony punishable by 1-3 years in the Illinois Department of Corrections.

Under Illinois law pursuant to 720 ILCS 5/31-1, a person who knowingly resists or obstructs the performance by one known to the person to be a peace officer, firefighter, or correctional institution employee of any authorized act within his official capacity commits a Class A misdemeanor. According to 720 ILCS 5/31-4(a) and (b) a person obstructs justice:

“when, with intent to prevent the apprehension or obstruct the prosecution or defense of any person, he knowingly commits any of the following acts:

  • Destroys, alters, conceals or disguises physical evidence, plants false evidence, furnishes false information; or
  • Induces a witness having knowledge material to the subject at issue to leave the State or conceal himself; or
  • Possessing knowledge material to the subject at issue, he leaves the State or conceals himself.”

Remember the actor Jessie Smollett? On February 20, 2019, Smollett was charged by a grand jury with a class 4 felony for filing a false police report. Judge John Fitzgerald Lyke Jr. set Smollett's bail at $100,000 and he had to surrender his passport. On March 8, Smollett was indicted on 16 felony counts of "false report of offense".  After completing 16 hours of community service and forfeiting his $10,000 bond, charges against Smollett were dropped on March 28.

At the time of publication, it was unclear whether Granite City police officers have body cameras. Granite City does has a Private Video Surveillance Camera Registration program. The Granite City Police Department signed an agreement with Amazon's home surveillance equipment company, Ring, in 2020 to gain special access to the company's Neighbors app. Someone should check to see if any other private video exist.

Driver’s license suspensions for failure to pay fines inflict particular harm on Black drivers

By Sian Mughan, Arizona State University

Imagine being unable to pay a US$50 traffic ticket and, as a result, facing mounting fees so high that even after paying hundreds, maybe thousands, of dollars toward your debt you still owe money.

Imagine being fired from your job because you’ve been forced to use unreliable public transportation instead of your car.

And imagine going to jail several times because, even though your license is suspended, you had to drive to work.

These are some of the situations facing millions of Americans who were unable to pay fines – and whose lives were turned into a nightmare by overly punitive policies in response.

And these policies have an outsize, and damaging, impact on Black Americans, according to our research.

Black drivers are more likely to encounter police regardless of how they drive, research shows. Rich Legg/Getty Images

Cycles of debt

Most cities and states have policies that allow them to suspend a driver’s license for nonpayment of fines and fees, most commonly traffic fines.

These policies are so popular that judges have described them as “the most valuable tool available to the municipal courts for inducing payment on past due accounts.”

Studying the effects of these policies can be difficult because there is no uniform national reporting of crime statistics.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that failure to pay fines – not dangerous driving – is the most common reason for driver’s license suspensions in the United States.

And research indicates that these burdens are primarily borne by low-income people and people of color.

As a public affairs scholar who has written extensively about labor markets and criminal justice systems, I’ve conducted research with Joanna Carroll supports these conclusions.

But it also illuminates a previously unknown racial inequality of the policy.

Our research suggests that, by appearing on the driver’s record, license suspensions increase the probability that Black – but not white – drivers incur more traffic tickets. Even after the debt is paid and the license regained, these suspensions continue to harm drivers, and these harms exclusively affect Black drivers.

This shows that suspensions don’t just trap people in a cycle of mounting debt but also a cycle of negative interactions with the criminal justice system.

Long-term impact of suspensions

We studied a sample of over 2,000 drivers who received traffic tickets in Marion County, Indiana, home to Indianapolis, between 2011 and 2016.

In that county, if a driver fails to pay or contest a ticket within 72 days, their license is automatically suspended. This means that judges and other members of the justice system cannot choose who receives a suspension.

Every driver in our sample paid their ticket in the days surrounding the payment deadline.

This is an ideal environment to study the long-term impacts of suspensions because it creates two groups of people that are easily comparable: those who paid the ticket right before the deadline, thus avoiding a suspension, and those who paid after the deadline and received a suspension.

We found that Black drivers who received a failure-to-pay suspension increased their likelihood of getting another ticket by up to nine percentage points. White drivers, meanwhile, saw a roughly three percentage point decrease in their likelihood of getting another ticket.

We attempted to identify differences between white and Black drivers that might explain this result but were unable to do so. For example, Black drivers are not committing more offenses than white drivers, nor are the offenses they commit more serious. Black drivers are just as likely as white drivers to pay their tickets. And Black drivers are more likely than white drivers to reinstate their license after the suspension.

Moreover, regardless of race, following the suspension, drivers with larger fines are less likely to receive another ticket, suggesting that all drivers drive more cautiously after getting a suspension, likely to reduce the probability of receiving another ticket. This is consistent with previous studies on the effects of traffic policies, which show traffic enforcement leads to safer driving.

Ineffective strategies for Black drivers

We believe the most convincing explanation for our findings is that driving “better” to avoid being pulled over is an ineffective strategy for Black drivers, who are more likely to have an encounter with police regardless of how they drive.

This interpretation is consistent with studies showing Black people are more likely to be pulled over without cause. After pulling over a Black driver, the police officer discovers the prior failure-to-pay suspension and becomes more likely to issue a ticket.

This sequence of events does not occur when the driver is white because white drivers are able to minimize the chance of being pulled over by changing their driving behavior.

Our research is the first to study failure-to-pay suspensions in the United States, and it’s the first to demonstrate that they exert disproportionate harm on Black drivers.

This evidence could prove relevant to policymakers in states across the county who are currently debating discontinuing license suspension for nonpayment of legal debts.

Dr. Joanna Carroll co-authored this research while she was at Indiana University. She currently works at the Government Accountability Office.The Conversation


Republished with permission under license from The Conversation.