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Ford To Introduce Restrictive Car Keys For Parents
thesandbender writes "Ford is set to release a management system that will restrict certain aspects of a car's performance based on which key is in the ignition. The speed is limited to 80, you can't turn off traction control, and you can't turn the stereo up to eleven. It's targeted at parents of teenagers and seems like a generally good idea, especially if you get a break on your insurance." The keys will be introduced with the 2010 Focus coupe and will quickly spread to Ford's entire lineup.
Do Fords even go up to 80?
would have saved me the humiliation of "racing" my parents' taurus
That's absurd. If you're old enough to drive, you're old enough to take responsibility for the way you do it. If a parent can't trust her kid to drive responsibly, she shouldn't be letting him drive in the first place.
While there are a few situations I've been in where the ability to exceed 80 mph has been critical to safety (getting out from behind dangerous drivers on the freeway who are liable to cause a pileup, for instance), that's not the point.
If you can't trust your kid to drive responsibly, get his ass off the road until you can.
Apparently, a Cheetah.
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
If you're trying to accelerate from 70 to 90 mph to avoid an accident I'd be willing to bet that you would have been much better off just hitting the brakes anyway. If they were talking about restricting acceleration, you might have a point. As it is, I don't see having a limited top speed causing any accidents.
You mean speed limits?
Just like what if the government decided that everyone should have a 10 PM bedtime, and no desert for a week after yelling at your sister. Parenting a slippery slope people.
Why haven't people realized that this kind of thing isn't compatible with the way teenagers think? When you restrict them like this, you're basically telling them that they aren't trusted. I don't care whether or not that's true, but that's how it will be interpreted by them. They're going to push against the restrictions, especially when so many of their friends don't have to put up with the same limitations. This is no substitute for teaching teens to be responsible drivers. Letting them know that you trust them and allowing them to use their own judgment is a huge step towards them becoming more mature and responsible. Chances are they'll probably have more respect for their parents and the vehicle itself. But yeah, if they screw that trust over this seems like a pretty good punishment. I just hope no parents enable these features on their poor children by default.
so, why do the parents need to drive over 80, turn off traction control, and turn the stereo up to 11? they all seem like pretty bad ideas whoever is driving the car?
That's just silly. Let's apply that logic to something (anything!) else:
If parents think it's ok to have an established curfew for their kids, what if the government thinks it's a good idea to establish a curfew for everyone!?
If parents think it's ok to monitor their kids internet usage, what if the government thinks it's a good idea to monitor everyone's internet usage!?
If parents think it's ok to send their kids to their room when they don't eat their vegetables, what if EVERYONE gets sent to their room when they don't eat their vegetables?!
So no there is no "much more important other side"... unless of course, you're silly.
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Apparently, spelling and grammar help readers understand what others are writing.
Would be a car that logged exactly where it went and at what speed, automatically uploading it to a PC in your house. I don't think kids would be anywhere near as reckless knowing that their parents would see exactly how they'd been driving.
Much, perhaps most, dangerous driving by kids is caused by trying to show off to their mates. Limit the speed and power and the vehicle to its baic transport function. No fun trying to do a burn out in a car that refuses to do it.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Is 80 MPH legal anywhere in the USA?
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Go live in atlanta, dc, or pennsylvania for a while. Then type that with a straight face.
prolly easier to type with my hands and a keyboard, wherever i am
GM already did that in a car where cutting back the car's performance makes a difference - a
"valet" key limited the 1990-1995 ZR-1 Corvette to 225bhp or so, by shutting off the secondary intake runners and secondary fuel injectors.
Who's going to notice the difference in a Ford Focus? Limited power or not, 0 to 60 still takes about eight weeks. Traction control? Can a Focus actually break traction on dry ground?
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I'm sure californians will feel very safe knowing they can't access every single horsepower to get off that bridge before it collapses in an earthquake.
Riiiiight... so the golden gate bridge is bucking and swaying, cars all around you are coming to a stop... and your going to slam on the gas in your Porsche? You won't get 10 meters before you have an accident on the bridge at the best of times... and your going to do during or in the immediate aftermath of an major earthquake...
You seem to live in a boolean universe. Parents sort of trust their kids to drive responsibly, but know it will vary with who else is in the car. It makes sense to loan a car that they cannot show off in, nor be *encouraged* to drive faster than they have competence. Also, distraction in the car is a problem is well. Slower means more time to react to a threat.
Stats show that males (prob females too these days) stabilize at safe driving only when over 25. Stupid to only allow them to borrow the car when that old. They need the socialization way before then. Slower accidents may cause injury, but are no where near as likely to be fatal.
As for needing to drive over 80. Yup, it is remotely possible that that might happen. They also would need a bottle of whiskey in the car to act as medicinal alcohol in case of accidents. Yeah, right.
You are aware that a lot, if not most, newer commercial vehicles (cargo vans, straight trucks) have speed limiters on them that cut out somewhere between 66-80mph. As someone who drives them every day I couldn't tell you once that it's ever been an issue other than "I wish I was going faster because then I'd get there sooner."
Don't like that one? There are plenty of cars that have top end limiters, I believe there one of the old Chevys cut out at 115 or so. How many people do you think have been complaining about that one?
I rarely drive the speed limit in anything but rush hour traffic, but the idea that not being able to go faster than 80 is endangering anybodies life, or especially more people than it's protecting is complete bullshit. It's right up there with people who don't wear seatbelts because they know a guy who knows a guy who was killed by one, you can come up with any harebrained scenario to justify it (I've already seen "racing off a collapsing bridge") but you're just grasping at straws.
thinkofthechildren?
You're all doing it wrong. I remember having the family car as a kid. The point wasn't to go 80+. It was to cruise for a while doing 25-40, and then find a place to stop for a couple of hours. As far as long-term life-impact, the family car is as dangerous parked in a nice secluded spot as it is at top speed. The car's meant to get you to the spot where the trouble starts.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
There's no situation where a teenager needs to drive over 80, probably; that only occurs on the highway, and most parents probably aren't going to let their teenagers drive on the interstate.
My objection to this isn't so much that it prevents kids from doing things they might need to do for safety, but that someone who does the right thing only because they have no opportunity to do the wrong thing isn't really responsible.
Just as with alcohol in the USA, you know those kids -- when they finally get unfettered access to their cars -- are going to drive like maniacs and cause all sorts of wrecks.
I'm sorry, but most teenagers can barely drive in the first place, let alone when panicked during an emergency.
You mad
at that speed you could have just gone back in time to avoid the ticket in the first place
Actually, having automatically-enforced speed limits would be a tough call.
Federally, they would like to have this automatically enforced (as there is a huge cost related to speeding, accidents, road wear, etc).
But for states and particularly city gov't, speeding tickets are an excellent source of revenue.
Even though the data recorder in your car was sold to you using the "it just tracks info so the manufacturer can improve your cars safety", in reality it is used for:
-to deny you your warrantee, if you have a problem with your car, but it shows you doing something the manufacturer didn't want you to do (or go somewhere they didn't want you to go)
-to charge you with speeding and dangerous driving and whatever else the data record shows, when you get into an accident
And now that the gov't has found out how useful these data recorders are, they are mandating that more cars have them, that they cannot be disabled and that they track more data.
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Depends on the direction. It could well be accelerating at 9.8m/s^2. But if that's the case, you're screwed anyways.
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
Wanking off to a Playmate of the Month is somewhat less likely to kill him than running into a telephone pole at 95 MPH. I'd say it's worth trying to make cars a bit safer where possible.
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I am an actuarial analyst for a major property and casualty insurer in the US.
Insurance rates tend to trend upward because inflation, loss costs, and adjustment/expense costs trend upward. Despite popular belief, they do not trend upward because of the profit contingency loading, and this is due to the fact that personal insurance is a very highly regulated industry in the US. If my company simply decided to increase our loading by even 0.5%, you can be assured that every state Dept. of Insurance would write back immediately, asking why we feel justified raising profit loading by that amount, right before they deny our filings.
In layman's terms, loss costs increase because the value of insured properties such as autos and homes tend to increase. What I mean by this is not depreciation, or the decline in value of a single purchased asset, but rather the idea that the average paid value of assets or services rendered increases over time, due to inflation or technological improvements. Health care 10 years ago did not cost what it does today. Cars didn't cost what they do today. And so forth.
Loss adjustment expenses also increase in coordination with inflation and the cost of doing business.
It is also in part because more people survive accidents that the cost of insurance goes up. More survivors = more injured = higher medical payments. Similarly, more technology = higher repair cost. There is also a loose correlation in that safer vehicles tend to lead to less safe driving habits.
I understand that the average consumer is naive about the nature of insurance. If the public truly wishes to decrease their premiums, then in roughly decreasing order of importance, (1) drive less, (2) drive slower and more carefully, (3) don't buy SUVs or large vehicles. Of course, this only applies to the population as a whole. As an individual insured, your exposure as determined by your insurer has to do with your age, gender, location, credit history (where permitted), type and age of vehicle, and driving record, among other variables. The extent to which a group of insureds incurs greater losses is the extent to which those people pay higher premiums. That is the principle upon which actuarial ratemaking is founded, and if the public is unhappy with how much it costs to insure their assets, then stop having so much loss. After all, do you think insurers actually want to increase rates on their policyholders? They don't, because there is so much competitive pressure to keep rates low, for fear of losing business. In fact, if an insurer files a rate change significantly lower than their indicated rate need, that is a red flag to the DOI, because it raises the possibility of insolvency risk.
If you think insurance is a scam, tell that to the people whose entire earthly possessions were wiped out in Hurricanes Katrina and Ike, or the California wildfires. On the one hand, they'll tell you how insurance saved them, but on the other hand, if you don't live in a risk-prone state, you'll wonder why these people thought living on an island right along Hurricane Alley would be a good idea, and why you should be asked to partially subsidize their choice.
Aren't you the guy who was arguing that it was perfectly safe to eat and use your cellphone while driving?
Back in the day, i'd say yes. A cell phone back then was dialable by touch, and no more distracting than changing the radio station.
Now.. you have to look at it continuously, navigate through nine menus, etc.
As for eating.. it depends on what the food is.
Trying to eat a steak dinner isn't exactly the safest thing in the world, but reaching into a bag and popping gummy bears into your mouth every once in a while is, once again, no more distracting than changing the radio station.
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Actually, no. Traction control will give you the maximum traction possible in snow, so you will not need to rock the car in the first place.
Yes, but it's a foot in the door.
And that's how all the fabulous gov't regulations happen. They all start of with "To keep you safe, we need to...".
In the US, they stopped bothering with incremental regulations. They just get the first increment, then ignore the limits (see NSA security letters, secret wiretapping, PATRIOT act misuse).
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
Let me reiterate the GP's point:
And now we've seen "racing 80+ on gravel tracks normally reserved for Finnish rally drivers to save a kid from concussion to the head, caused by wild mÃÃse"
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Seriously.
I was rear-ended at a fairly high-speed (I was sitting at a stop light) a few years ago in a Volvo, by a Saturn.
The Saturn was a mess (and literally *bounced* off of the Volvo). My car needed a new bumper and a bit of paint*.
There's something to be said for putting teenagers in slow, heavy cars. The Volvo wasn't particularly *slow* or underpowered, though it also certainly wasn't the sort of car that one "joyrides" in.
The first car I drove was a Minivan. It served very well to teach me the, uh, limitations of certain vehicles. Having a good sense of when to be conservative (and also when it's OK to be somewhat less so) was one of the more important driving skills I picked up. It also seated 7, which was great as a teenager, despite the extremely "uncool" stigma associated with driving a van.
Learning to drive in an SUV, on the other hand, is a terrible idea. They're so huge, heavy, and overpowered that you can get away with just about anything, and also not face many consequences if you do somehow screw up.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
Just like the titanic needs no lifeboats...
Control is an illusion, order our comforting lie. From chaos, through chaos, into chaos we fly
But is it OK if the government decided that police can help enforce a parent's discipline on their dependent minor? Because that's what this is. It's a KEY, people! If you think your kid is a good enough driver to judge when going faster is the more appropriate course of action, give them the unlimited key.
This empowers parents, not the government. I'll have it, thanks!
And around 25 your brain is physically mature. Go ask a neuroscientist and get a clue, my friend. :)
.: Max Romantschuk
I trust my son more than I'd have trusted myself at that age, but still...
I'd like him to be able to use the newer more reliable car, but prevent him from being pressured into being a dick.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Because they will just download their own cars, for free.
You've never actually been anywhere that it snows, have you?
Do you honestly think the millions of people in Minneapolis, Chicago, Buffalo all use tire chains? Roads would have to be replaced completely every year.
Well, here in the Twin Cities in Minnesota, probably only 5% of people use tire chains, because they have to be able to drive on the highway (at highway speeds) as well, and probably also because they know how to drive in the snow. Without tire chains, you DO need to rock the car back and forth with a quick reverse/drive action sometimes to get out of the little rut you're in.
To some of the above posters: the ones who are saying traction control should be OFF for snow are CORRECT. My '08 Jetta's manual, and common sense about braking in snow, confirm it.
WHO NEEDS SHIFT WHEN YOU HAVE CAPSLOCK/ DAMN1
Feel free to mod me down, but the issue needs to be raised.
We need a cars category. Many of us like to talk about this kind of stuff. ca.driving was one of the most popular newsgroups on ancient Usenet (and had a wonderful signal to noise ratio to boot).
We do not need the invisible article title text featured by the beta index and the firehose.
Back on topic:
I learned to drive in a large vehicle too - my parents' Plymouth Satellite. My mother screamed when I (slightly) misjudged the clearance on the right the first time I used my learner's permit (no harm, no foul, no accident, no ticket).
I suspect I'll do something similar when my wife gets her US license.
um... what? ABS increases your stopping distance? Help me out with your logic here since I'm no car pro... ABS works by keeping your tires in the static friction arena and avoiding moving into dynamic friction since static friction is greater. ABS works by feathering the breaking when it detects a tire slipping with respect to the other three, leading to not skidding, leadingto a reduction in your stopping distance.
"a person could break much better than ABS if he/she just knew what he/she was doing..." I'm expecting this type of argument but i have a hard time believing that an engineer couldn't design a better stopping mechanism with ABS than even the best person could do without ABS. Similar to how high tech automatic transmissions can out perform even the best drivers now a days... With modern computers, mechanics can out perform human reflexes.
Your statement sounds like BS to me, but since I don't know anything about your logic I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and ask you to enlighten me.
don
all language nazi's will burne in heil!
Seriously, traditional societies recognize adulthood at, like 13.
Seriously, traditional societies were totally fucked up. I'm not sure why we should be using them as role models.
... and then they built the supercollider.
Alternatively parents could try having a mature and trusting relationship with their teenage children...
-= This is a self-referential sig =-
I just knew this post, and others like it, would fill the comments section of this article. As usual, the two faced kneejerk nature of Slashdot groupthink rears it's ugly head... On one hand, the hive mind insists that parents are responsible and accountable for monitoring and controlling their kids - but each time a tool to actually allow the parents to do that is discussed here, the same hive mind rears up on it's back legs and howls about how unfair it is for parents to monitor and control their kids.
Actually, abs brakes do not really help or hurt your stopping distance in most cases, in laboratory conditions keeping static friction works best but on a dirty road just burning rubber often gets better results. But reducing stopping distance is not even what they are supposed to do. They make you able to steer your car while maximum braking, and even if that costs you a few meters of stopping distance, it's well worth it - something I found out first hand when some nice old lady decided to drive onto the highway right in front of me when I was going ~100km/h.
I know they tell you that the direction of front tires have no effect on where the car is going when the brakes are locked, and I'm pretty sure I actually tested it once or twice at safe speed, but nothing prepares for the horror when you realize that there is someone right in front of you and you are closing in fast, there is a truck coming on the opposite lane, and since you forgot to not to turn the wheel while brakes were locked, you have no idea what direction the tires are facing currently, so if you release the brakes until slow enough, you risk driving off-road or even flipping the car.
Would not buy a car without ABS again.
They make you able to steer your car while maximum braking
mod parent up. I've you've ever attended a safe driving course where you train emergency stops you'll know why you need ABS. Without ABS you'll have to let go of the brakes to steer your car around the obstacle. During our practice runs we killed quite a few virtual deer without ABS, whereas with ABS you just steer around the obstacle while keeping the brakes applied.
BTW if you've never experienced ABS you'd be well advised to try it on a quiet road someday. The first time you're likely to think you broke something as ABS makes a terrible noise. As our instructor said: when you start hearing the grinding sound, kick the brakes even further.
Locking the brakes up might stop you from being decapitated by stopping your car from going under that trailer to begin with.
You failed highschool physics, didn't you? Once the brakes are locked, the tyres start to slide. Once they start to slide, they have almost no grip at all. With the brakes locked, you slide almost as far on snow as you do on dry tarmac. Try it some time. Just, not near me.
Speeding up is never a good idea, if the situation is dangerous, chucking more energy into a possible crash will just make it worse.
Secondly, you should be leaving enough space in front of you to brake safely, and if that space becomes compromised you should rebuild that space quickly. There is no excuse for going into the back of someone, it means that you wasn't driving safely, and insurance claims agree on this 99% of the time.
Thirdly, top speed is not the same as acceleration. Acceleration can be handy to get out of a tight situation like pulling out of a junction or onto a roundabout, but going more than 80 mph is not a tight situation.
The Saturn was a mess (and literally *bounced* off of the Volvo). My car needed a new bumper and a bit of paint*.
Err ... yes? The part of the Saturn that is designed as a crumple zone hit a part of your Volvo that is not designed as a crumple zone. As intended by the designers, the crumple zone of the Saturn ... crumpled, and the read of your Volvo, which isn't designed to crumple, did not. What else should have happened, in your opinion?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3ygYUYia9I
Very interesting video from Fifth gear about just how much safer newer cars are.
My wife's family swears by their old volvo station wagon, and having been in a similar accident to what you describe in it, is built like a tank in terms of how much structural damage it takes in a minor impact (ie, how expensive the repairs will be).
But as you can see in this video, it's more an illusion of safety than a reality.
New cars crumple and destroy themselves so that *they* absorb the force instead of *you* absorbing it. It's not just a way to make things cheaper and force insurance companies to buy new cars more often.
Traction control and ABS brakes are for people who want to feel safe without being safe.
That is demonstrably not true.
ABS brakes will put you under the trailer. Locking the brakes up might stop you from being decapitated by stopping your car from going under that trailer to begin with.
If you are that close to the trailer you are driving WAY too close to begin with. ABS is for stopping when the traction sucks and locking the brakes would induce a dangerous skid. ABS is no substitute for safe driving technique.
ABS won't let you lock your brakes up at all, which can get you mangled up in rush hour traffic if you're not used to it.
A) If you aren't that used to the car you shouldn't be driving in dangerous conditions. B) If ABS comes on and the weather isn't horrendous, you are driving WAY too close. C) If the weather is horrendous, you should be providing even more distance to the car ahead anyway and ABS will help you stop faster than without.
You are wearing that mandated seat belt, yes? Ever try to think of unbuckling it so you can dive for the floor in a panic situation?
No. That would be retarded. I cannot even conceive of a reasonably likely scenario where I would ever want to do that while moving. I'm also not aware of case where that would have saved anyone. Want the best odds of survival in an accident? Wear your seatbelt.
FWIW, I lived in the Cleveland/Cuyahoga County area for 25 years without needing snow chains.
I lived in Geauga County, right in the heart of the snowbelt for 20 years and my parents still live there. You are right, snow chains are not necessary there, though snow tires aren't a bad idea if you have the cash to get some. I did however keep a set of snow chains just in case and did have occasion to use them once. However go to Tahoe or various parts of the Rockies and snow chains are not only a good idea they are often required.
It's my opinion that ABS and traction control are NOT needed if the driver is properly trained in local conditions.
Normally you are correct in most locations. ABS and traction control are no substitute for safe driving technique. That does not however make them useless. They demonstrably improve safety which is why their use has been mandated.