6 ms·

You cant have a remote cutoff option due to lawsuits. What if a zipcar got turned off on the highway and caused an accident, they would be sued

• zaidf 11y ago
  How about disabling the car once the crooks park it?
  • dorfsmay 11y ago
    And lock the doors before they can get out! Send the police. One of the isuue, and probably what the thief are gaming is how it takes to be reported.
• thescriptkiddie 11y ago
  How could killing the engine cause an accident? I guess it could be a problem if you were stopped on a railroad crossing, but really?. Pretty much all cars on sale today come with an immobilizer built in, and services like lojack and onstar allow you to activate it remotely.
  • bpicolo 11y ago
    Slowing down, without lights, unexpectedly in traffic while modern day humans pay no attention to driving by using their phone? Seems totally likely to cause an accident.
  • magicalist 11y ago
    > Pretty much all cars on sale today come with an immobilizer built in, and services like lojack and onstar allow you to activate it remotely Doesn't that just not let you start the car? I don't think it turns off the car. edit: according to [1], OnStar "can limit the speed at which it can be driven, remotely lock the ignition so that it can’t be started, and track the car’s location". [1] https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2014/09/07/how-tech-making-car-theft-obsolete/4qzCXHQHiQPvcjqewQWIZJ/story.html https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2014/09/07/how-tech-mak... (as for the original question, even ignoring situations where you need to have acceleration to get out of them, just cut the power steering on someone who has never driven without it and see how well they pull over to the side of a busy intersection or the like)
    • pavel_lishin 11y ago
      > just cut the power steering on someone who has never driven without it and see how well they pull over to the side of a busy intersection or the like Having had power steering (and power everything else) go out on me in an F250, it's pretty much kind of terrifying. Brakes? Sort of. Steering? Sure, if you put your back into it.
  • cag_ii 11y ago
    Stopping the engine also means you'd loose power steering, and more importantly power brakes.