DRIVING A little black box for the parents

For about $280, mom and dad can track their kids' driving.
ST. PETERSBURG TIMES
The device tracks speed, seat-belt use and even hard cornering -- and snitches to parents of young drivers.
Rob Traviesa of St. Petersburg wishes he had owned one when the oldest of his three daughters got her driver's license and "went on a speeding ticket binge."
Belinda Rahal, mother of a 16-year-old driver, immediately said, "I want one," when she heard about it. "Every time I hear an ambulance and Kaitlin is out, I worry that it's her."
Traviesa and Rahal were referring to the RS-1000 Onboard Computer, a black box small enough to hold in the hand or slide under the seat of a car. What it does, basically, is rat out teenage drivers.
What's happening
Now parents who worry themselves sick over what's happening with their kids once they are out of the driveway, off the block and out of sight have a way to find out.
The RS-1000 was created 16 years ago by a California company to cut accidents in emergency-response vehicles and is available now in a simpler and less expensive form for private car owners.
The manufacturer says any parent can connect it in 15 to 20 minutes to the data cables installed in every car sold in the United States since 1996.
Each black box contains a computer card, easily retrieved and hooked up to a personal computer, where the data can be uploaded using a USB cable. The simpler home units record driving speeds, seat-belt use, cornering speeds and braking, unsafe backing up, where drivers go and when they go there.
"We have a teenage son, and when he turned 15 1/2, I knew I was going to put one of these things in his car," said Larry Selditz, president and CEO of Road Safety International of Thousand Oaks, Calif., which makes the units.
Simpler version
But at $4,000 each, Selditz knew he wasn't going to sell many to other parents of teenagers. So he designed a simpler version that sells for $280.
"The modern black-box technology you find in modern aircraft record data over something like 280 channels," Selditz said. "You don't need that for a kid's car."
The units are not without a heart.
They give drivers one chance to slip up without mom and dad knowing.
"If you're speeding, you get a tone to warn you," Selditz said. "If you slow down, fine. It's just between you and the black box. But if you don't slow down, or you speed a second time, it goes into the record and you're busted."
And don't think you can blot out the tones by turning up the stereo.
"They get progressively more annoying," Selditz said. "The black boxes measure ambient noise. The louder you play the stereo, the louder the tone."