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Keyless Cars and Their Carbon Monoxide Toll

nytimes.com

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Re: Keyless Cars and Their Carbon Monoxide Toll

#181

Post by kss238 »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #167
kss238 wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what happens in winter when I go turn my car on thirty minutes before I leave to make sure it's nice and warm?

Could be a special switch on the fob for that. Could beep every five minutes to remind you. Lots of ways to handle it that would save lives at the cost of only minimal inconvenience.

How is beeping every five minutes any different than what cars do currently? Cars with push to start are already required to beep when the key is taken out of the car.

If you add a special switch, that increases costs. Why should car buyers bear extra expenses for less than 100 deaths a year?

Should we require special bathtub sensors that beep when they detects still water because hundreds of people drown in bathtubs each year?

Re: Keyless Cars and Their Carbon Monoxide Toll

#182

Post by dx034 »

microcolonel wrote: post #131
hedora wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but the anti skid pad in my bathtub (which might prevent drownings) is slippery when damp, so I fell in the bath while taking a shower, and could have been killed. I guess that sort of death goes under the “drowning” category, since the bath mitigation can kill shower-takers.

> I guess that sort of death goes under the “drowning” category How could it be? Do you plug your drain when you shower? Are the investigators in your area too lazy to find head trauma?

if after falling the shower head is aimed towards your face you can probably drown. The fall only knocked you out, the water caused death.

Re: Keyless Cars and Their Carbon Monoxide Toll

#183

Post by dx034 »

rpcope1 wrote: post #119
justin66 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On average, that's two deaths a year in a country of more than 260 million passenger vehicles.[1] These accidental deaths are tragic, but it's actually impressive how infrequently they occur. The deaths and injuries are utterly avoidable with decent design. Also, this is a feature that isn't prominent yet. The number of deaths is only going to get higher until the cars are built to turn the engine off under the rig…

> The number of deaths is only going to get higher until the cars are built to turn the engine off under the right conditions. I assume implicit to this statement, is that some heuristic algorithm needs to be created to turn the car off. This seems like a grossly over-complicated (and failure prone) solution in comparison to just using a key for the ignition instead. If you can do something easily with a strictly mec…

Why not just start an alarm 10 seconds after the key is out of range? Or automatically shut off the engine if the key has been out of range for more than 5 minutes. That still prevents accidents while driving (there were cases where children threw keys out of the window) but should be safe otherwise. And programming that timer shouldn't be a lot of work. The detection already exists anyway.

Re: Keyless Cars and Their Carbon Monoxide Toll

#184

Post by dx034 »

hanbura wrote: post #171
otherme33 wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Key not in the car" should be condition enough. I'm having a hard time thinking of a scenario where you NEED to have the key away from the car while the engine is running.

That would lead to far more accidents where people leave kids or animals alone in a car in direct sunlight, assuming the AC will keep them cool. But as they step away from the vehicle, the engine and AC turn off, leaving anyone in the car to die from heat stroke. Those people don't need to take the car key with them, but with a keyless car you don't think about the key (that's the entire point of keyless cars). The k…

Isn't keeping a car running with children inside incredibly dangerous? What if they release the breaks or shift to drive? I'd think taking the child with you should be safer than leaving them in a running car.

For animals that's different of course. But wouldn't an override be enough?

Re: Keyless Cars and Their Carbon Monoxide Toll

#185

Post by dx034 »

beamatronic wrote: post #102
hangonhn wrote: post #48

I had a pretty scary run in with CO from my car once and it had nothing to do with the keyless fob. My car with gasoline direct injection had two bad injectors fail while I was driving home. It went into limp mode. When I got home I inserted the OBD2 scanner to diagnose the issue in the garage. Because it was in limp mode, the engine was running rich and I guess producing a lot of CO in my garage. In the roughly 5 mi…

>> never run a car inside the garage with the door closed Are you implying this is not common knowledge?

Yes. I know a lot of people who start their engine while waiting for the garage door to open.

Re: Keyless Cars and Their Carbon Monoxide Toll

#186

Post by dx034 »

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?

If we can save lives by installing a simple alarm that goes off when the key is out of range, why shouldn't it be done? The cost per vehicle are negligible, no new hardware needed, just updated software.

Re: Keyless Cars and Their Carbon Monoxide Toll

#187

Post by dx034 »

karl11 wrote: post #40

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.

I always thought all cars had alarms for these cases. Similar to when your child throws the key out of the window while driving. Shouldn't happen but has happened (there were some news stories on that last year) and there's no reason the car shouldn't give an alarm.

Re: Keyless Cars and Their Carbon Monoxide Toll

#188

Post by dx034 »

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...

Everyone should have a CO detector in their homes and it's already law in some countries. CO poisoning is very dangerous and can happen independent of cars. IF you have a smoke alarm at home there's no reason why you shouldn't have a CO detector as well (those probably make even more sense, CO can kill you even if you're awake, smoke detectors mostly help when you're sleeping).

Re: Keyless Cars and Their Carbon Monoxide Toll

#189

Post by NLips »

Angostura wrote: post #180

Not mentioned in the article, but I imagine that this could be exacerbated by the fuel-saving 'auto engine off' behaviour of newer cars... you arrive home, engage the brake and the engine turns off automatically. ... only to automatically restart 15 minutes later when the engine sensors detect the oil temp is dropping.

It won't be the same for all, but my car won't autorestart the engine if I've opened the door i.e. the behaviour changes from

- pull up, shift to neutral, engine stops - wait - car worries about battery, restarts engine

to

- pull up, shift to neutral, engine stops - open door and get out - wait - get back in, engage clutch, car tells me I have to manually restart the car

Re: Keyless Cars and Their Carbon Monoxide Toll

#190

Post by Y_Y »

bonestamp2 wrote: post #134
microcolonel wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I guess that sort of death goes under the “drowning” category How could it be? Do you plug your drain when you shower? Are the investigators in your area too lazy to find head trauma?

I think what you guys are trying to say is that time is equal to 400 total jerks at a two dick rate.

But how many angels can wank on the head of a pin?
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