Interesting article on "deadly" keyless ignition

As your example illustrates, every extra interlock is one or more a potential points of failure. On critical items such as an engine, its a good idea to think pretty carefully before adding one.

Also, how would such interlocks work with remote start or with use of the car as a generator? Possible presumably but is the complexity worth it?

 

Unless using a switch in the seat lowers complexity, it doesn't raise it.

 

The requirement to depress brake pedal in order to completely turn the car on, is a similar interlock. It has been problematic, but in the whole it works.

 

Agrerd, forty years later cars are alot more complex that they were back then.
What scares me is the Big Brother effect of controlling vehicles without driver input.

 

I'm all for the best safety possible. But most professional engineers consider any engineering to be ad-hoc if no actual mathematical calculations of all the factors involved has been worked out. Until all the fault probabilities, human override preventions, dealer fix difficulties, and likelihood of occurrences is actually worked out, it is just conjecture to say if safety is improved or not. Once proven to be an improvement, then it should be incorporated

 

Several of you are trying to 'fix' the car. Ventilate your garage and there is no issue. Trying to hermetically seal your garage can allow asphyxiation.

 

Or plug in a CO sensor. e.g.
Kidde Plug-In Combination Explosive Gas/Carbon Monoxide Alarm Detector with Battery Back-up-KN-COEG-3 - The Home Depot

 

ONLY IF the juries are STUPID enough to never hold the plaintiff responsible for his/her own stupidity.

 

Hang the carbon monoxide issue; leaving the car on would play havoc with my Fuelly icon.

The one time our car was left on like that was at Open Road Toyo in Port Moody, prior to our test drive. They'd jump started it, 12 volt was completely knackered, from a long sit on the lot.

 

Lot Rot can strike any car or Prius.

 

There's a VW dealership nearby, and for a while I noticed all the cars (or the bulk of them) had little solar panels under the windshields, I assume to maintain the batteries. Of late I think they're not doing it anymore, maybe not that effective?

(I'm getting to be bad for taking the discussion off-topic, sorry.)

 

I must confess, I've done it in the driveway.....twice. First time, the fob was in my backpack where I always leave it. It wasn't until I tried to lock the car that it bleeped at me. Frankly, I've never really understood the buttons versus key slot. The actual key in slot made for better memory, and far fewer variables.

But I'm delighted (three times now), that locking the car with the key inside doesn't work.

 

In the airline industry we call this "active monitoring". Pay attention to what is going on around you and what the instruments are telling you. Walking away from a car that is still "Ready" is partly from "passive monitoring".

Pilots have to fight this all the time: hours and hours of boredom on autopilot.

Have a routine, have something you actively point at every time you are preparing to step out of your car and lock it. I always look at the shutdown screen and read my mileage that trip, and I lock my door with the smart door handle lock, and listen for the beep.

 

Also a good idea to always lock the car when it's in the garage. It becomes very obvious if the car hasn't been switched off and provides added security.

 

"Stupid" is a subjective word, not objective. Therefore a jury has every right, ...........every responsibility, to interpret the facts and determine a just judgement within the context of exiting law, regardless of your opinion. So no, I don't agree with you. It appears that you have never been on a jury, as I have been. Should you be selected for a jury at some time in the future, you will then understand of what I am speaking. Until then.............

 

We have a combination dealer in my neighborhood, BMW-Subaru-Volkswagen.
They, too use the windshield battery charger. It plugs into the 12 VDC receptacle and gives the battery a trickle of charge to offset whatever the ECU uses in its power down mode. There's nothing worse than going to a vehicle and finding out the battery died yesterday.

I guess worse would be not finding your car at all. Especially if you are in a different city or country.

 

Maybe they stopped using them because they're cig lighter connection? Prius for example, only have power there when the the car's on. You could plug into OBD, it's always on.

 

You're correct, it is open to interpretation. I'll likely never sit on a jury as I'm a law school graduate and would likely never pass the voir dire process for selection.

From the experience I have had dealing with courts and juries, the goal of each side is to pick jurists who are as "blank slate" as possible so that they can convince them that their respective argument(s) are the correct one...regardless of what the rule of law actually says on the issue.

I've seen cases decided entirely on "jury sympathy" and not one shred of actual evidence presented in court. So, I'm a little "jaded" on the whole process.

 

Agree.

Disagree. It is the ethical responsibility of the opposing attorneys and the judge to uphold the law as presented. Don't blame juries for being "stupid" because you don't agree with their findings. Blame the "professionals" in the court system for "manipulating" what the rule of law actually says on the issue (which often times is subject to interpretation since some court rulings haven't been entirely clear).

Again, don't blame the jury for being "stupid." You can blame the skillful attorney who packed the jury with people he can manipulate. And maybe a little sympathy from a jury of your peers can be justified and empathetic from time to time.

Oh, I know a lot of attorney jokes I would like to share right now, but some of them would likely cause me to be banned!!!!!!!!!

 

Any new ones? I could use a good chuckle.