What is crash data?

Crash data, is data specifically stored, in the event a car is involved in either a crash or a near-miss event.

What is a near-miss event?

A near-miss event is one where the vehicle is subject to a series of movements or forces, where the vehicle believes it may need to deploy the supplementary restraint safety systems (SRS), but for whatever reason, the need to deploy them, never comes. In those instances, data may still be recorded in the vehicles airbag control module, even though the airbags were not deployed.

What data is recorded?

The data that is recorded varies from manufacturer to manufacturer and is also heavily dependent on the age of the car. Some examples include vehicle speed, engine speed, whether the brake or accelerator pedals were depressed as well as information relating to the forces involved.

How can you recover crash data?

Crash data is generally recovered in two ways, the first is through the on-board diagnostic (OBD) port, the second is by connecting directly to the cars airbag control module (ACM) (sometimes called the restraint control module (RCM)).

What systems are used to recover crash data?

Recovering crash data generally occurs in one of three ways. The first is a manufacturer only download, the second is manufacturer specific system and the final is a general commercially available system. A manufacturer only download involves the manufacturer physically downloading the system (common on Jaguar and Land Rovers). Manufacturer specific system is a system dedicated to that particular manufacturer (common to Kia and Hyundai). The final is a general, commercially available system, such as Bosch CDR or Collision Sciences Crash Scan, which can be used on an increasing range of vehicles.