The availability of a variety of control units offers new possibilities for the accident investigator when putting together a comprehensive accident analysis report. In this context, collecting data is often difficult. In most cases, specialist equipment is needed to acquire data. Getting access to particularly detailed data currently requires the support of the manufacturer. Depending on the data source, there are risks due to time limits imposed by data protection regulations. Some data captured by optional systems is only stored for 30 days. Evaluating real-world cases has demonstrated the necessity of questioning the validity of such data. Moreover, there are still significant gaps in the data that is available and can be obtained without too much effort. Data which can currently be generated tends to provide a better picture of the sequence of events. It is not certain, however, that the data delivers sufficiently accurate details around the sequence of events without additional evaluation. Analysing the data needs to be left to the qualified accident investigator.

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