The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) will propose that all light passenger vehicles built on or after September 1, 2014 have data event recorders (EDRs), similar to the "black boxes" on airplanes.
The EDRs record technical data related to crashes and can be used to piece together what happened.
The NHTSA proposal is not a huge leap, because about 96% of 2013 model year cars and light-duty vehicles are EDR-capable. The New York Times reports that EDRs cost about $20 each.
NHTSA administrator David Strickland said "EDRs provide critical safety information that might not otherwise be available to NHTSA to evaluate what happened during a crash - and what future steps could be taken to save lives and prevent injuries."
