Joyriding Detection Device?
 

It is a sad fact that many mechanics, oil-changers, valet-parkers, or anybody you entrust your car to may try to experience the high-end performance of your car.

I am surprised that nobody is selling a joyride detector (or why have I not heard of one). One type that I can imagine would be a cheap PDA with an accelerometer plugged in. You leave this device in your car and it records a log of the acceleration your car undergoes in your absence. You also might be able to arm it so that it starts beeping if acceleration exceeds preset limits.

Just letting people know that you have this could deter most joyriding.

How many people would be willing to pay a few hundred bucks for such a device?

Technical notes: Several companies make inexpensive solid state accelerometers. One I believe is AMD – Advanced Micro Devices. The largest hobby discussion of these devices that I recall seeing were by builders of radio controlled helicopters.

Would people be more interested in an accelerometer if it was integrated into a trip computer? So you could also do things like playback the lateral acceleration you experienced going through a series of S curves?

Please Note: I am not soliciting business. In fact by publicly disclosing this idea I have probably given up any claim to patent rights.

Such devices already exist. I have seen them on a TV documentary program like 60 Minutes or something. Not sure who makes them, but some parents with teenage drivers had installed them on their cars. They told how far the car had been driven and what the maximum speed that had been reached during the drive was.
I also read about a rental car company that installed them on their cars. I'm not positive, but if I remember correctly I think they were including some fine print in their policies and penalizing people for speeding with their rentals. This didn't hold up in court when customers challenged the penalties.
I don't know who made these things but they are definitely out there.

Indeed, many of the new Radar Detectors include GPS tracking devices that allow you to determine max speed and distance traveled. Now, you'd have to make sure the tech didn't turn it off, but I'm sure some of the enterprising out there with these crazy fast cars could figure it out.

didn't the Corvette ZR1 have something built in?
 

I remember something about that being install from the factory. Anyone remember which car it was? Something where you were able to put the car in valet mode.

Black boxes. Even though we may not their location, but almost all modern cars have data recorders in them that activate when the air bag deploys...they tell whether or not brakes were applied, speed, yaw, pitch, lights on or off, blinkers, everything but audio recording...


not that is much help...lol, just some trivia I guess...