From Craig Timberg’s new Washington Post article about the legal implications of smart cars:

“More than 60 percent of vehicles worldwide will be connected directly to the Internet by 2017, up from 11 percent last year, predicts ABI Research. In North America and Europe, that percentage is likely to reach 80 percent.

Many cars already record their speed, direction and gear setting, as well as when brakes activate and for how long. Newer systems also can track whether road surfaces are slick or whether the driver is wearing a seat belt — information potentially valuable to police and insurance companies investigating crashes. (Some car insurance companies already monitor driving behavior in exchange for discounted rates.)

‘The cars produce literally hundreds of megabytes of data each second,’ said John Ellis, a Ford technologist who demonstrated some of the new Internet-based systems at the company’s display at the Mobile World Congress, which ended last week in Barcelona. ‘The technology is advancing so much faster than legislation or business models are keeping up. . . . What can government do? What can you do?’“