Dan Rodricks: Speed kills, but not as much as phones and other driver distractions do

The fact that most cars and trucks come equipped with an event data recorder was news to me and most of the savvy friends and colleagues I surveyed. But EDRs have been onboard our vehicles for many years. The devices record a few seconds of information about your car or truck before, during and after an “event,” when the air bag goes off or when you hit the brakes hard. “They give a snapshot,” says John Davis, longtime host of MotorWeek on Maryland Public Television. “They are used in accident investigations just like the ‘black box’ on an airplane.”