Keyless Cars and Their Carbon Monoxide Toll • Hacker News Board

Re: Keyless Cars and Their Carbon Monoxide Toll

#31

Post by dmurray » Sun, May 13, 2018, 11:41 PM UTC

clairity wrote: post #27

rdiddly wrote: post #10

35,000 people are being killed in the US every year by cars, but now suddenly it's "Deadly Convenience," now that 2 people a year are dying from CO poisoning?

any time human lives are involved it's worth moderating one's outrage at such distortions, but the point you make is worthy of consideration: the number of deaths per year (21 in some unspecified time period is quoted in the article) seems to be relatively small compared to other addressable hazards. the number of deaths and injuries per year from carbon monoxide poisoning by car is roughly on par with lightning stri…

If lightning strikes would really only kill two people a year and not cause property damage, we should not be adding lightning rods to buildings. That's probably fewer than the number of people who die while fitting lightning rods.

Re: Keyless Cars and Their Carbon Monoxide Toll

#32

Post by dnautics » Sun, May 13, 2018, 11:41 PM UTC

spraak wrote: post #7

I've certainly often forgotten to turn off the Prii [1] I've used. [1] http://content.usatoday.com/communities/driveon/post/2011/02...

I've forgotten to leave with the keys, several times. Not so bad at work, which is in an office lot in suburban sleepytown, but kind of scary when I get back from paying a social call in a higher-petty-crime area like the Mission district.

Re: Keyless Cars and Their Carbon Monoxide Toll

#33

Post by lisper » Sun, May 13, 2018, 11:42 PM UTC

emodendroket wrote: post #21

lisper wrote: post #19

Sounds to me like a big part of the problem is that these cars are too quiet. (I call that a nice problem to have.) My car beeps at me pretty loudly when I get out with the engine running.

Yeah, when I first got the car I have now I had trouble telling whether it was running because it was so quiet. It also has engine noise piped through the speakers, I guess to make it feel sportier.

> engine noise piped through the speakers

LOL! What kind of car is it?

Re: Keyless Cars and Their Carbon Monoxide Toll

#34

Post by schiffern » Sun, May 13, 2018, 11:42 PM UTC

Qwertie wrote: post #28

kemitche wrote: post #15

I wonder if these vehicles wouldn't benefit from an onboard CO detector? Automatic shutoff if the vehicle is stationary and CO hits a given threshold. There's indubitably a bunch of reasons not to do it that way...

The car would probably be undrivable in India

I believe the parent poster was referred to the keyless start feature only, not shutting down during regular driving.

But if keyless start isn't available (and gives a warning message) when the ambient CO levels are borderline hazardous ... isn't that a feature, not a bug?

Now that you mention it, it would be nice to get a warning light during driving as well. Or better yet a PPM reading.

Re: Keyless Cars and Their Carbon Monoxide Toll

#35

Post by tptacek » Sun, May 13, 2018, 11:44 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #30

tptacek wrote: post #18

I feel like I read sometime last year 'DannyBee saying that modern cars were efficient enough that it was unlikely they'd be dangerous running in a garage. Found it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14705990

That's a pretty impressive memory feat.

It was a memorable claim!

Re: Keyless Cars and Their Carbon Monoxide Toll

#36

Post by notahacker » Sun, May 13, 2018, 11:44 PM UTC

rdiddly wrote: post #10

35,000 people are being killed in the US every year by cars, but now suddenly it's "Deadly Convenience," now that 2 people a year are dying from CO poisoning?

We live in the sort of weird world where people would rather look into ways of stopping those people dying from CO poisoning than snarkily dismiss their deaths as statistically irrelevant.

Pretty much all of those 35000 deaths involve mistakes, faults or cases of pure bad luck whose individual contribution to fatalities is comparatively small; pretty much all of them get investigated to see what went wrong and whether it's something that's likely to be repeated or something which can be avoided in future without disproportionate cost.

Re: Keyless Cars and Their Carbon Monoxide Toll

#37

Post by stevenwoo » Sun, May 13, 2018, 11:44 PM UTC

rdiddly wrote: post #10

35,000 people are being killed in the US every year by cars, but now suddenly it's "Deadly Convenience," now that 2 people a year are dying from CO poisoning?

Ford has had issues with some models sold to law enforcement due to CO leaks - some people believe it's endemic to all Explorers - and no one has died as far as I know yet.

Austin PD put CO detectors in their vehicles and found enough issues to pull them all off the street. http://money.cnn.com/2017/07/14/autos/ford-carbon-monoxide/i...

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2018/01/25/feds-pr...

Re: Keyless Cars and Their Carbon Monoxide Toll

#38

Post by joshvm » Sun, May 13, 2018, 11:47 PM UTC

kemitche wrote: post #15

I wonder if these vehicles wouldn't benefit from an onboard CO detector? Automatic shutoff if the vehicle is stationary and CO hits a given threshold. There's indubitably a bunch of reasons not to do it that way...

On a side note, it's a legal requirement in some countries to having a working CO detector in the home, certainly for rented properties in the UK. Also in some (30+) states by the looks of it [1]. A $10 detector would have probably saved the gentleman's life.

[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221133551...

Re: Keyless Cars and Their Carbon Monoxide Toll

#39

Post by Theodores » Sun, May 13, 2018, 11:48 PM UTC

This would never happen in the UK or Norway as petrol costs too much and people just would not have a house big enough that they would not notice an automobile engine chugging away right next to them.

Cheap petrol in the USA means that people are in the habit of doing things like starting their car remotely to 'warm up' or 'cool down' before they then have a shower, brekkie and what not before finally getting in their car. Usually the car is on the driveway and not the garage in these scenarios, however, that is something that would not happen in the rest of the world, where petrol costs real money in part because a U.S. dollar has to be bought in order to buy the oil that is always priced in petro-dollars.

Given that people do suicide themselves by connecting some hosepipe from the exhaust to the interior of a car I am actually surprised that there are not rules regarding CO detectors already. CO can not just kill the occupants, you could have a big pile-up on a motorway due to CO poisoning. This happened a few times with police cars last year and 3/4 of all CO deaths are due to vehicles, not central heating or other sources.

Re: Keyless Cars and Their Carbon Monoxide Toll

#40

Post by karl11 » Sun, May 13, 2018, 11:48 PM UTC

I would bet that collectively the time wasted due to mishaps exceeds time saved by this feature. For me personally, I don’t think I will ever make the time up in my lifetime - I have accidentally killed a battery once because the car was in ACC mode and I didn’t realize it, and another time I drove away without the key because I was dropping the owner of the car off at the airport.