Everybody knows that after an airplane crashes, the first order of business for investigators is to locate the black box. But few people know that two thirds of new automobiles sold in the United States also contain black boxes, known in the auto industry as “event data recorders.” No federal or industry regulations govern the devices, which record such things as speed, air bag deployment, accelerator pedal and brake applications, seat belt use, and so forth, but they have nonetheless provided key evidence for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and other crash investigators.

Toyota installs the black boxes in all of its cars and trucks. However, unlike most other companies, Toyota goes to great lengths to safeguard the information recorded by the devices. Whereas the black boxes in Ford, GM and Chrysler vehicles can be read by law enforcement and any other investigators, only one laptop in the U.S. is equipped to read Toyota’s data recorders, and that laptop comes attached to a Toyota representative.

Toyota performs an information download only when ordered by the court or federal investigators. And even then the readings are typically shrouded in further secrecy.

According to Sean Kane, head of the consumer safety group Safety Research & Strategies, Inc., Toyota’s system is both alarming and frustrating.

“Every time Toyota downloads these things, they say there’s no indication of a problem,” Kane told Newsweek. “It’s the most opaque system I’ve ever seen.”

April Yergin, an accident reconstruction expert based in Houston, told Newsweek that “even when they do perform a download, it’s usually not that useful.”

Yergin recently witnessed a Toyota official download the data from the black box of the sudden unintended acceleration accident that left four people dead in Southlake, Texas, on the day after Christmas last year. The car apparently sped out of control before landing upside-down in a pond, killing all four occupants. Investigators found the car’s floor mats in the trunk, where the owner had stored them following Toyota’s precautionary advice. According to Toyota, removing the driver’s side floor mat would also remove the chance of being involved in a sudden-acceleration incident.

According to Yergin, the only bit of information the Toyota rep revealed in the Southlake incident was that the car was traveling at 44 mph when it struck a tree. But is it really any surprise that Toyota didn’t reveal more? Many auto and safety experts believe that  Toyota’s sudden acceleration problems stem from something more systemic, such as a defective or vulnerable electronic throttle.

An Associated Press investigation found that “Toyota has been inconsistent — and sometimes even contradictory — in revealing exactly what the devices record and don’t record, including critical data about whether the brake or accelerator pedals were depressed at the time of a crash.”

Understandably, NHTSA wants more transparency from car manufacturers such as Toyota. The agency will standardize automotive “black box” recorders beginning in 2012.

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