Abstract:
A vehicle recorder includes a first accident symptom detector for detecting an accident symptom and generating a first direction signal corresponding to a position relation between the first accident symptom detector and the accident symptom, a steering device coupled to the first accident symptom detector for performing a steering operation according to the first direction signal, an image capturing device installed on the steering device and coupled to the first accident symptom detector for capturing images continuously for a predetermined period of time according to the first direction signal and a memory for storing the continuous images captured by the image capturing device during the predetermined period of time.

Description:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION  
       [0001]     1. Field of the Invention  
         [0002]     The present invention is related to a vehicle recorder and particularly to a vehicle recorder to capture continuous images in the vicinity of an accident before and after the accident happens.  
         [0003]     2. Brief Description of the Related Art  
         [0004]     Rapid economic development brings to unceasing increase of vehicles but uprising number of cars comes along with increase of car accidents inevitably. Once a car accident happens, how to attribute the liability correctly and exactly is a problem bothering parties concerned. Thus, it is required a processing procedure available for the parties concerned to follow commonly before it is decided which party has to be responsible for the liability.  
         [0005]     Referring to  FIG. 1 , a flow chart with regard to the conventional procedure for processing a car accident is illustrated. The processing procedure  100  is further divided into two main sub-procedures, personal accident sub-procedure and article accident sub-procedure. The processing procedure  100  includes following steps:  
         [0006]     Step  102 : Starts (a car accident happens);  
         [0007]     Step  104 : The scene of the car accident is inspected and statements of the parties concerned are listened (The processing procedure  100  is divided into the article accident sub-procedure from step  106  and the personal accident sub-procedure from step  156  hereinafter.);  
         [0008]     Step  106 : Identity is examined by insurance company and negotiation is made with the insurance company;  
         [0009]     Step  108 : Examination is engaged and persons in duty are sent on mission (For example, appraising personnel is sent to the scene of accident.);  
         [0010]     Step  110 : Sharing proportion of liability of fault is evaluated and calculated.  
         [0011]     Step  112 : damaged cars in the accident are delivered to the shop for repair and then go to step  109 .  
         [0012]     Step  156 : The scene of accident is analyzed and the accident is investigated.  
         [0013]     Step  158 : The parties concerned propose different opinions.  
         [0014]     Step  160 : Negotiation is conducted between the parties concerned.  
         [0015]     Step  162 : If the parties concerned have reached an agreement? If it is “Yes”, go back step  106 . If it is “No”, go to step  164 ;  
         [0016]     Step  164 : Make sure witness and evidence being secured.  
         [0017]     Step  166 : An accident appraisal institution is assigned.  
         [0018]     Step  168 : If the parties concerned agree report made by the accident appraisal institution? If it is “Yes”, go to step  190  and if it is “No”, go to step  170 .  
         [0019]     Step  170 : A legal proceeding is taken; and  
         [0020]     Step  190 : End.  
         [0021]     Most of the steps in the processing procedure  100  are visible without arguments and they are implemented easily such as step  104  (The scene of the car accident is inspected and statements of the parties concerned are listened.) and step  166  (An accident appraisal institution is assigned.). However, the step  164  (Make sure witness and evidence being secured.) is difficult to control. It is because the witness and the evidence are probably unwilling to bear testimony due to being afraid of getting trouble even if they have promised to bear testimony. Hence, the assigned accident appraisal institution in step  166  and court in charge of the proceeding in step  170  are unable to make a proper decision for the car accident owing to no sufficient evidences are available. That means the harmed party is unable to acquire the deserved compensation.  
       SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION  
       [0022]     In order to overcome the preceding deficiencies, an object of the present invention is to provide a vehicle recorder to capture continuous images in the vicinity of an accident before and after the accident happens.  
         [0023]     Accordingly, a vehicle recorder to capture continuous images in the vicinity of an accident before and after the accident happens according to the present invention includes a first accident symptom detector, being used for detecting an accident symptom and generating a first position signal, which provides a positional relation between the first accident symptom detector and the accident symptom; a steering device, being coupled to the first accident symptom detector for implementing a movement of steering in accordance with the first position signal; an image capturing device, being mounted to the steering device and coupled to the first accident symptom detector for capturing images continuously in a predetermined time duration; and a memory, being coupled to the image capturing device for storing the continuous images captured by the image capturing device in the predetermined time duration.  
         [0024]     Furthermore, a vehicle recorder for a transportation tool to capture continuous images in the vicinity of an accident before and after the accident happens according to the present invention includes an accident symptom detector, being used for detecting an accident symptom and generating an accident symptom signal; a position detector, being used for detecting an object nearest the transportation in accordance with the accident symptom signal and generating a position signal, which provides a position relation between the object and the transportation tool; a steering device, being coupled to the position detector for implementing a movement of steering based on the position signal; an image capturing device, being mounted to the steering device and coupled to the position detector for capturing images continuously in a predetermined time duration according to the position signal; and a memory, being coupled to the image capturing device for storing the continuous images captured by the image capturing device in the predetermined time duration.  
     
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS  
       [0025]     The detail structure, the applied principle, the function and the effectiveness of the present invention can be more fully understood with reference to the following description and accompanying drawings, in which:  
         [0026]      FIG. 1  is a flow chart illustrating the conventional process being treated for a car accident;  
         [0027]      FIG. 2  is a top view of the first embodiment of a vehicle recorder according to the present invention;  
         [0028]      FIG. 3  is a top view of the second embodiment of a vehicle recorder according to the present invention; and  
         [0029]      FIG. 4  is a top view of the third embodiment of a vehicle recorder according to the present invention 
     
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION  
       [0030]     Generally, a symptom always appears prior to a car accident happening.  
         [0031]     For instance, a deafening noise created by friction of tires against the ground or continuous lasting warn of horn can be regarded as the accident symptom occurring before a car accident happening. Accordingly, the specific feature of the accident symptom is utilized in a vehicle recorder of the present invention. That is, the vehicle recorder has detected the accident symptom and continuous images around the accident symptom are recorded in advance. Equivalently, those recorded images are regarded as continuous images in the vicinity of a car accident before (right after the symptom of accident) and after the car accident.  
         [0032]     Referring to  FIG. 2 , the first embodiment of a vehicle recorder  10  of the present invention is illustrated. The vehicle recorder  10  is mounted to a transportation tool for recording continuous images in the vicinity of a car accident before and after the car accident happens such as all the changes of the traffic lights from before till after the car accident. In this way, the continuous images before and after the car accident registered by the vehicle recorder  10  are capable of offering the appraisal institution or the court sufficient evidences before the liability of the car accident being capable of being attributed to the party causing the accident even if no witness gives evidence or the witness is unwilling to give evidence.  
         [0033]     The vehicle recorder  10  includes a first accident symptom detector  12 , a steering device  14  coupled to the first accident symptom detector  12 , an image capturing device  16  mounted to the steering device  14  and coupled to first accident detector  12  and a memory  18  for saving the images.  
         [0034]     The first accident symptom detector  12  is used for detecting an accident symptom  20  and generating a first position signal PSI, which is related to position relation between the first accident symptom detector  12  and the accident symptom  20 . For instance, the first accident symptom detector  12  can detect noise resulting from frictions of the wheel tires against the ground, the lasting warning sound from horn or objects near the first accident symptom detector  12 . It is an extreme possibility that the noise resulting from frictions of the wheel tires against the ground occurs due to a high speed moving vehicle stopping urgently with brakes and it is an extreme possibility too that the lasting sound warned with horn results from a high speed moving car along the road almost hitting a passenger or another car. In case of the sound volume of the noise resulting from frictions of the wheel tires against the ground being detected higher than a predetermined sound volume (equivalently, speed per hour of the car must be higher than a predetermined speed per hour), a duration of the lasting sound warned with the horn being detected longer than a predetermined duration or a distance between an object and the first accident symptom detector  12  being shorter than a predetermined distance (the car mounted with the first accident symptom  12  almost hits the object), the first accident symptom detector  12  generates a first position signal PSI. The first position signal PSI has a positional relation with the first accident symptom detector  12 , the car emitting the lasting warning sound or the object almost hit by the car.  
         [0035]     The steering device  14  implements a movement of steering in accordance with the first accident symptom detector  12 . Due to the image capturing device  16  being mounted to the steering device  14 , it is equivalent that the image capturing device  16  is steered during the steering device  14  implementing a movement of steering. The first position signal PSI generated by the first accident symptom detector  12  basically is used to steer the image capturing device  16  facing the accident symptom  20  such that the image capturing device  16  is able to capture images surrounding the accident symptom  20 . After receiving the first position signal PSI generated by the first accident symptom detector  12 , the image capturing device  16  starts to capture images continuously in predetermined time duration and stores the captured images in the memory  18 . The predetermined time duration is 5 to 10 seconds so that it is not necessary for the memory  18  to provide too large the data storage capacity of the memory  18 .  
         [0036]     Because the image capturing device  16  has been steered to face the accident symptom  20 , the captured continuous images definitely are images surrounding the accident symptom  20 . As the forgoing, the captured continuous images contain images of changes of the traffic lights right before and after a car accident. In this way, the accident determination institute and the court is capable of deciding the liability of the car accident being attributed to which party.  
         [0037]     The vehicle recorder  10  provided in the first embodiment of the present invention includes a single accident symptom detector only, i.e., the first accident symptom detector  12  only. Referring to  FIGS. 3 , the second embodiment of a vehicle recorder  10  of the present invention is illustrated. The vehicle recorder  40  of the second embodiment further includes a second accident symptom detector  42  in addition to the first accident symptom detector  12 , the steering device  14 , the image capturing device  16  and the memory  18 . Similar to the first accident symptom detector  12 , the second accident symptom detector  42  is used for detecting the accident symptom  20  and generates a second positional signal PS 2 . The second position signal PS 2  provides position relation of the second accident symptom  42  to the accident symptom  20 .  
         [0038]     An angle θ between a first straight line  44  connecting the first accident symptom detector  12  to the accident symptom  20  and a second straight line  46  connecting the second accident symptom detector  42  to the accident symptom  20  has a relation to a distance between the accident symptom  20  to the image capturing device  16 . That is, the angle θ being greater stands for the distance of the accident symptom  20  to the image capturing device  16  being shorter and vice versa. Hence, the image capturing device  16  is capable of zooming in or out the images based on the second positional signal PS 2 . In this way, the image capturing device  16  can be operated to zoom out the images in the vicinity of the accident symptom  20  in case of angle θ being small so as to capture clearer images of the accident symptom  20  and to zoom in the images in the vicinity of the accident symptom  20  in case of angle θ being very large so as to capture the entire accident symptom  20 .  
         [0039]     The vehicle recorders  10 ,  40  in preceding two embodiments detect the accident symptom  20  passively, that is, the vehicle recorders  10 ,  40  generate the first and second positional signals PSI, PS 2  passively only because the accident symptom  20  has been detected in an environment having the transportation tool. However, the vehicle recorder of the present invention is able to generate a positional signal automatically.  
         [0040]     Referring to  FIG. 4 , a block diagram of functions of the third embodiment of a vehicle recorder  70  according to the present invention is illustrated. The vehicle recorder  70  can be mounted to the transportation tool too. The vehicle recorder  70  of the third embodiment further includes an accident symptom detector  72  and a position detector  74  in addition to the first accident symptom detector  12 , the steering device  14 , the image capturing device  16  and the memory  18 . The function of the first accident symptom detector  12  can be performed by the accident symptom detector  72  and the position detector  74 .  
         [0041]     Specifically, the accident symptom detector  72  is capable of detecting rotational speeds of the tires or temperatures of the brakes of the transportation tool and generating an accident symptom signal in case of respective change rate of the rotational speeds of the tires being higher than a predetermined change rate or the temperatures of the brakes being higher than a predetermined temperature. It is noted that due to urgently braking, the rotational speeds of the tires reduced to low speeds from high rotational speeds rapidly so that the change rate of the rotational speeds of the tires is extremely possibly higher than the predetermined change rate. The position detector  74  detects an object  80  (probably a car in front of the transportation tool) and generates a position signal PS (similar to the first positional signal) nearest the transportation tool as soon as the accident symptom signal is received by the position detector  74 . The position signal PS has a position relation of the object  80  to the position detector  74 . By the same token, the steering device  14  implements a movement of steering as soon as the position signal PS is received by the steering device  14  so that the image capturing device  16  is steered to face the object  80 . In this way, the image capturing device  16  is able to capture images surrounding the object  80 . Of course, the vehicle recorder  70  is able to add another position detector such that the scene surrounding the object  80  can be captured more clearly and completely by the vehicle recorder  70  as recorded images.  
         [0042]     Comparing to the prior art, it is appreciated that the vehicle recorder of the present invention is capable of registering continuous images surrounding the scene of a car accident passively or automatically in advance before the car accident happens, i.e., during a accident symptom occurring. In this way, the accident determination institute and the court are capable of deciding the liability of the car accident being attributed to which party according to the continuous images.  
         [0043]     While the invention has been described with referencing to preferred embodiments thereof, it is to be understood that modifications or variations may be easily made without departing from the spirit of this invention, which is defined by the appended claims.