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Obviously such a device could go a long way towards preventing theft, odometer tampering and other criminal activities which cost the industry a huge amount of money each year.

However, some bright spark also twigged to the fact that the companies could, based on the information recorded, issue speeding fines to its customers. They claimed that such fines were issued in anticipation of the company being left in the lurch if offending vehicles were caught by speed cameras and infringement notices were received after the customer had long-since disappeared.

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If I recall correctly, the use of these devices for the purposes of policing drivers' speed and other driving habits was struck down by a court decision, and many customers or would-be customers probably breathed a sigh of relief.

Move forward to last week however, and you'll see that there may be good justification for actually fitting such tell-tale black boxes to Kiwi cars.

According to this story in the NZ Herald, the police are now willing to take the word of anyone who calls them and lays a complaint against another driver. Yes, if someone sees you speeding and dobbs you in then you'll likely get a ticket in the mail.

Of course you do have a right to appeal - but that's almost certainly going to cost you time and money -- so no matter what you do, you'll be copping some kind of penalty.

Perhaps this is the Police's way of reducing their workload -- just rely on the public to do the work and take all their claims at face-value.

Unfortunately it's too bad if someone suffers from road rage after you legally overtake them and decides to call the cops to report you as doing 40Kph faster than you were actually going -- chances are that you'll end up with a fine or an expensive court session as a result.

But back to those GPS-based black-boxes...

Could this "presumption of guilt" approach by the police be a clever way of paving the way for the introduction of such devices in all Kiwi cars?

"Sorry sir, but if you want to guarantee that you're not falsely accused by someone you really ought to fit one of these to your vehicle so we can verify your defense" might be the response to anyone bitching about those citizen-initiated tickets.

Or maybe some enterprising entrepreneur will simply decide to market such a tamper-proof device so that law-abiding drivers can send in the proof of their innocence by way of a printout produced by a suitably accredited authentication service.

Whatever the reason or the ultimate outcome, I'm gravely worried that, yet again, we've got a system that is moving away from the presumption of innocence to the presumption of guilt.

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