"First, the EDRs could be -- and almost certainly willbe -- tied into your vehicle's GPS. (Most new and late model cars, conveniently, already have this, too.) Then data about your driving can be transmitted -- as well as recorded."
Wrong. GPS don't transmit anything.

"To whom? Your insurance company, of course."
According to what? Or is this the "non-paranoid" part of the article?

"Progressive Insurance already has such a system in place -- voluntary, for the moment."
Wrong. They may have an OBDII monitoring insurance plan, that has nothing to do with EDR or this proposed bill.

"The question arises: why?"
For the stated safety reason? Naaaaaah.

"Of course, it's really for the sake of revenue -- the government's and the insurance company's."
How do they make revenue from information they can't access until after a crash?

"Your rates will be "adjusted" in real time, for every incident of "speeding" or not buckling up. It'll be so much more efficient than using cops to issue tickets. After all, so many fishes escape! With an EDR in every car, no one will escape. Your "adjusted" premium will be waiting for you when you get home."
They completely have their story mixed up. There's the insurance implemented monitoring system which consumers can choose, and then there's EDR that is used to analyse crashes for statistical and litigation purposes.

"And naturally, they -- the government, insurance companies -- will be able to track your every move, noting (and recording) where you've been and when."


"But the last possibility is probably the creepiest: EDRs tied into your car's GPS will give them -- the government and/or corporations -- literal physical control over (hack) "your" vehicle. This is not conspiracy theorizing. It is technologicalfact. Current GM vehicles equipped with the same technology about to be mandated for every vehicle can be disabled remotely. Just turned off."
Guess what? WRONG AGAIN! EDR has nothing to do with OnStar, which is how GM can remotely disable a car.

"In the future, it will be used to limit your driving -- for the sake of "energy conservation" or, perhaps, "the environment." It will be the perfect, er, vehicle, for implementing U.N. Agenda 21 -- the plan to herd all of us formerly free-range tax cattle into urban feedlots. So much easier to control us this way. No more bailing out to the country or living off the grid - unless you get there (and to your work) bywalking.The pieces are all coming together."
This guy needs psychiatric counselling.

"First, computer-controlled cars. Next, widespread adoption of GPS in cars. Then, EDRs tied into them."
He has it backwards. EDRs have been around for decades, GPS are only becoming widespread now, and computer-controlled cars are on the way.

But the worst thing about this article is that it casts a negative light on the most important transportation revolution since the automobile itself, which is self-driving cars. And he does this with absolutely no logical foundation or reasoned critique of the pros/cons, but by relying on the old American trope of decrying their loss of freedom in the face of anything that requires the cooperation of more than two people. And the fat, ignorant, arrogant bastards in their vapid Cam-cords and Caravans people movers will pile on in support of this cause like it's a matter of life and death.

THAT is the ridiculous squabbling future we have to look forward to, not what was written in the so-called news article.