In Japan, the navigation systems on some new Hondas add overlays showing high crime areas so you can navigate around potential trouble spots, reports PhysOrg.com. That's the latest addition to navigation systems that are competing so far by offering real-time traffic information, weather maps, restaurant ratings, speed limit information, parking garage availability, traffic camera locations (in Europe), and points of interest (POIs) numbering in the multiple millions. A prototype crime-aware navigation system was unveiled by Mitsubishi at the CEATEC show in Tokyo in fall 2006, and, according to AFP, becomes available next week on Hondas sold in Japan. It rates districts by level of risk. What works in Japan may have trouble getting off the ground in the U.S., however.

Japan is a comparatively homogenous country, and criminals look more or less like the rest of the population, give or take a few scars, tattoos, or missing fingers. In the U.S., automakers have privately said it's not a big problem acquiring and overlaying crime data onto navigation systems, and it would be the kind of information that would benefit from being updated in real time, rather than relying on disc-based data that might be several years out of date. But the automakers (and makers of portable GPS devices) are scared to death of implementing this. No one minds going second or third once there's consensus, but being the pioneer is quite another matter. A Honda spokesman in the U.S. says there is "no pending plan to add this feature to our system." (Among other things, Honda uses Alpine-based navigation here.)

Everyone I've talked to has the same concern: Using crime data maps would amount, in the eyes of critics at least, to another form of redlining, telling motorists to avoid areas that often are populated by blacks or Hispanics. (Redlining refers to red lines drawn in the past by bankers around areas where they wouldn't lend.) Also, depending on how granular the reports - by zip code in a big city, for instance - a map overlay might combine a high crime section with a moderate (by urban standards) crime rate section and the whole zip code would be marked as marginally unsafe. There's also the problem of what kinds of crime should go into crime stats useful to motorists: carjackings (few as they are) and gas station robberies, yes, but what about housebreaks?

Stay tuned. There's no question motorists worry about crime, as witnessed by Volvo's optional heartbeat monitor that claims to detect someone who's broken into and is hiding inside your car. Crime data is a piece of information motorists would like. How soon they'll get it depends on how to make it appear politically correct, as well as relevant to motorists and accurate.