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Keyless Cars and Their Carbon Monoxide Toll

169 points by helloworld 8y ago

deleted 8y ago
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segmondy 8y ago
I suspect if they looked at attached garages and their toll when cars are left running the incident will be higher. How many people have died because of attached garages? Folks can help mitigate this by having carbon monoxide detectors in their garage and in the house. Car manufactures tho should have this built in, if the car is not running and the CO level inside get's too high, shut it off and sound the car alarm. The only challenge is that CO sensors seems to need replacing more than the life of the car and of course the price of car will go up and those without the need will be upset.
- hedora 8y ago
  I wonder how many people died because they locked their keys in a running vehicle in the garage, called a locksmith, but didn’t think about CO entering the house while they waited. At the rate of 2 per 100’s of millions of people per year, these scenarios become plausible.
forapurpose 8y ago
I assume people start their cars to warm the cabin. I expect there are much more efficient ways to warm the cabin than using excess heat from an internal combustion engine under the hood. Perhaps the solution is to provide a way to warm the cabin (including seats and steering wheel) very rapidly when the car starts, or provide a way to warm the cabin without starting the engine. The latter solution requires an energy source. Perhaps a hybrid car's batteries are it - not an option until recently, but hybrids are now relatively common - and the energy could be used efficiently: Ambient air heaters, of course; plus heaters directly in seats and steering wheel to warm them more efficiently than the ambient air would; plus of course sensors to shut down heaters when things are sufficiently warm. OT: Did the NY Times change their layout recently? For the first time, IMHO, it's gone from functional to appealing.
- cornellwright 8y ago
  This was one thing I really liked about driving an electric car in the winter - you can start the heater remotely through the app. Since it's an electric heater it warms up way faster than ICE. If it's plugged in, it will not even drain the battery.
  - tom_ 8y ago
    My old diesel car had an electric heater for the cabin. (The engine just didn't produce enough waste heat, I assume. In winter, the bonnet would still be icy after a 20 minute drive.) Such a great feature! The heater didn't start until the engine was running, or anything clever - it was a late 90s design, so nothing fancy - but you'd still get noticeably hot air within 2 minutes of setting off, and, with controls set appropriately, the cabin would become uncomfortably hot and dry, like a sauna, after about 5 minutes. I've got a petrol car now, a later model of the same line, and the designers clearly decided that there was no need for any trickery, and they could just use the heat from the engine. Big mistake! It's absolutely rubbish by comparison.
abootstrapper 8y ago
Keyless ignition over complicates the solution to a simple problem. I’ve never liked them on those grounds alone, and I hadn’t even considered the risks for injury. Then again I’ve always felt that more bells and whistles on a car are just more opportunities for breakage and repairs.
- kylec 8y ago
  Most keyless systems have a physical key backup in case stuff fails. So if the system breaks you're no worse off than a car that has a physical key. Also, in my experience, keyless systems are pretty reliable, I've never had one fail on me or anyone in my family. I also really like the convenience they provide in being able to lock, unlock, and start my car without needing to take anything out of my pocket. If I can help it, I'll never buy another car without a keyless system.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
helloworld 8y ago
This is certainly an interesting case study in the pitfalls of behavioral design, but one important detail that the story glosses over is how rare these incidents are: More than two dozen people [have been] killed by carbon monoxide nationwide since 2006 after a keyless-ignition vehicle was inadvertently left running in a garage. 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. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passenger_vehicles_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passenger_vehicles_in_the_Unit...
- romwell 8y ago
  You are asking the wrong question here. The right question to ask is how many CO deaths from accidentally leaving the car running in the garage were happening before the introduction of key fobs vs. now. The difference amounts to the multitude of easily avoidable deaths that lie entirely on the auto manufacturer's shoulders. A dozen people is a dozen people too many. Stopping the engine when exiting the car with a fob should be the default, as it is consistent with the old, physical key behavior - and will prevent someone from driving off with your car while you have the key (as happened to someone in the thread).
  - yock 8y ago
    > ...how many CO deaths from accidentally leaving the car running in the garage were happening before the introduction of key fobs vs. now. The great thing about the free market is that information spurs innovation. News stories like these make consumers aware of risks they couldn't recognize before. Now we, as informed buyers, can seek out these safety features in the products we buy.
    - MereInterest 8y ago
      Yeah, no. Humans are awful at estimating any low-probability event. That's why seatbelts and air bags took so long to catch on, despite being positive changes.
hi41 8y ago
>a software change that it said could be accomplished for pennies per vehicle. In the face of auto industry opposition, the agency let the plan languish, though it says a rule is still under consideration. Why the car industry would oppose such a minor fix is beyond me. If it does not even hurt the bottom line, why not make that change.
- Swizec 8y ago
  Many reasons why they’d oppose. Making it automatic means you become liable when it doesn’t work. Software has bugs. Adding it to older cars means you have to admit your cars aren’t safe and that’s hard plus recalls are annoying to deal with. People are fed up with all the beeping in modern cars and are becoming alarm deaf. I’m sure there’s others.
- emodendroket 8y ago
  I'd think some drivers prefer the current behavior. Like if you don't have a garage and live somewhere with cold winters you probably want to be able to start it and walk away.
  - oh_sigh 8y ago
    Sure, but 30 mins is more than enough time to warm up in situations where externally powered heaters aren't required. Surely there must be some safe ground that would not drastically affect most drivers, but still save lives
    - emodendroket 8y ago
      Yeah, that's fair. I drive a manual car, which makes it very hard to absent-mindedly leave your car running (at least if you park it in gear, but I think most people do).
- fyfy18 8y ago
  I have a 2010 Prius with keyless entry and start. If the car is on and you close any door without the key in the vehicle it will make a loud audible beeping noise. It means if you jump out to get something from the trunk, it first starts beeping when the drivers door is closed and again when the trunk is closed. Pretty hard to miss. If you try and lock the car while it is on (using the keyless entry), it will just produce a continuous audible noise and won’t lock - again pretty hard to miss. The same thing happens if you try and lock a key in the vehicle.
tzakrajs 8y ago
My 2015 Ford automatically shuts off after roughly 15 minutes of being without the key whether you start it from inside or outside of the vehicle.
- AlphaWeaver 8y ago
  The article explains Ford began adding this feature to its cars in 2013.
- TheForumTroll 8y ago
  That is a good thing since some newer Fords leak CO into the interior. I'm sure they wouldn't have added it if they could've gotten away with doing nothing.
  - tzakrajs 8y ago
    Thank you for the tip! I am going to do research into my Taurus to see if it is affected.
- foobarian 8y ago
  This is a good feature. At work we used to get emails about people leaving their lights on, now we get emails about people who left their car running (!) in the garage. Combination of keyless start and quiet engines is the culprit.
- gambiting 8y ago
  Hopefully not when driving though?
  - tzakrajs 8y ago
    LMFAO I have to try this now. I will report back tomorrow. I have to get a Faraday cage now.
spraak 8y ago
I've certainly often forgotten to turn off the Prii [1] I've used. [1] http://content.usatoday.com/communities/driveon/post/2011/02/toyota-prius-prii-prium-priuses-plural-james-lipton/1 http://content.usatoday.com/communities/driveon/post/2011/02...
- jedberg 8y ago
  The fact that you have to link to that article to justify your use of Prii says a lot about Toyota's marketing. ;) Also, obviously not nearly as dangerous given that it shuts off the engine when it is idle, on or not.
  - spraak 8y ago
    I used it playfully/jokingly, but perhaps in poor taste given the article's content
- dnautics 8y ago
  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.
  - perl4ever 8y ago
    My car (a Honda) won't lock with the button on the door handle if the key fob is inside, so I don't forget it.
    - twblalock 8y ago
      My Prius also has that feature. As far as I know, they all do.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - dnautics 8y ago
rdiddly 8y ago
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?
- emodendroket 8y ago
  That seems like a misreading.
- clairity 8y ago
  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 strikes. we address that particular danger with a relatively straightforward technology, the lightning rod. so i'd expect the response here would be of similar magnitude (rather than some convoluted rube goldbergian contraption). the auto-shutoff mechanism seems to fit the bill and some cars are already fitted with it. so all in all, it's worth being aware of this danger and the solution, but not worth spending much more time thinking about it. it's much more fruitful to focus on reducing one's heart disease vectors, cancer risks and distracted driving.
  - dmurray 8y ago
    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.
    - InitialLastName 8y ago
      This. LIghtning rods are a very cheap insurance policy against the enormous property damage that lightning does to your building (think fire + widespread electrical damage).
  - 8y ago
emodendroket 8y ago
I guess one advantage of driving a manual car is you won't make that mistake after violently stalling your car a few times.
- perl4ever 8y ago
  I learned to drive in a manual transmission truck made in 1987, with a clutch interlock. But I bought an '87 car with a manual transmission last year, and to my surprise, it doesn't have a clutch interlock. So I have inadvertently started it in gear once or twice. As it happens, I also have a 2016 car with a manual transmission and it is keyless - I haven't had any problems with it.
jedberg 8y ago
> Despite years of deaths, regulatory action has lagged. In California at least, all new homes and all rentals are required to have CO detectors. It seems like that would be a good regulation to have nationwide, which would help with this problem as well as other CO related issues.
kemitche 8y ago
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...
- Qwertie 8y ago
  The car would probably be undrivable in India
  - schiffern 8y ago
    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.
- joshvm 8y ago
  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/S2211335517300013 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221133551...
  - schiffern 8y ago
    >A $10 detector would have probably saved the gentleman's life. True, but making the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards requiring the $5 sensor in that $10 detector in every vehicle equipped with keyless start (or perhaps, every vehicle) would lead to nearly 100% deployment as the vehicle fleet is replaced. By comparison, despite decades of passing laws and funding public education campaigns, only 33% of households ("occupied units") having a working CO detectors[1], and 40% of "working" detectors failed to alarm in hazardous levels[2]. So overall, just 20% of households have adequate CO protection. FTA: > From news reports, lawsuits, police and fire records and incidents tracked by advocacy groups, The Times has identified 28 deaths and 45 injuries since 2006, but the figures could be higher. Let's estimate they found 1/3 of all cases, for a total of 56 deaths and 135 injuries. Estimating $6m per statistical life and $3m per injury (some injuries, like brain injuries, can be more than $6m for lifetime medical care and lost productivity, but this estimate is intentionally conservative). That's $61.75m annually, compared to the average of 13,532,750 annual vehicles sold in that time period[3], so about $4.5 of harm reduced per vehicle. So economically it seems like a wash, and it prevents awful tragedies. Sounds like a good idea to me. [1] https://www.census.gov/prod/2008pubs/h150-07.pdf https://www.census.gov/prod/2008pubs/h150-07.pdf, pp14 [2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3222366/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3222366/ [3] https://www.statista.com/statistics/199983/us-vehicle-sales-since-1951/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/199983/us-vehicle-sales-...
tptacek 8y ago
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 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14705990
- emodendroket 8y ago
  To be fair it does sound like the cars ran for hours in some of these cases.
- jacquesm 8y ago
  That's a pretty impressive memory feat.
  - tptacek 8y ago
    It was a memorable claim!
- jmgao 8y ago
  It seems like there's reasonable evidence that this is true: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28768080 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28768080
lisper 8y ago
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.
- emodendroket 8y ago
  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.
  - lisper 8y ago
    > engine noise piped through the speakers LOL! What kind of car is it?
    - emodendroket 8y ago
      A Volkswagen GTI, but BMWs do the same thing.
    - TheForumTroll 8y ago
      Many US cars have it. Ford F-150 for one.
- mayniac 8y ago
  This was my problem when I rented a keyless car for the first time last year. To preface, it was a v6 mustang which I wasn't actually expecting to be quiet, but in comparison to what I'm used to it was practically silent. Consider that cars have three usual running states: off, electrics on/engine off, everything on. How do you tell, quickly and conveniently, which state the car is in? With a key you can reach under the wheel and verify what state the car's in, in under a second. I haven't seen a keyless car system that was anywhere near that intuitive. Engine noise is usually the best indicator but as you've mentioned, cars are quiet now. With the rental car it took me a good half hour to figure out all the nuances of the keyless ignition. Compare that to seconds, occasionally minutes, of getting used to "normal" cars with keys/fobs.
petermcneeley 8y ago
Air quality sensors that would detect this any many other potential hazards would likely cost $5 or less. Even if lawsuits resolve this issue its interesting to see how its only resolved post harm.
pg_bot 8y ago
I'd rather see people install CO detectors within their homes as it is a more general solution to this problem. CO poisoning can occur with any fuel burning appliance in your home. It would be better to cover all sources instead of each one individually.
- TorKlingberg 8y ago
  A lot of homes don't have any fuel burning appliances. It varies between countries and places.
Theodores 8y ago
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.
- rascul 8y ago
  > CO can not just kill the occupants, you could have a big pile-up on a motorway due to CO poisoning. Do you have a source for this? I would be interested in reading about it.
  - Theodores 8y ago
    There are many stories, Google 'carbon monoxide police ford explorer' to start. Holes drilled in the vehicle for the flashing lights and other accessories were given as the cause in those police incidents, of which I think there were a few.
- thaumasiotes 8y ago
  > 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. This contributes nothing to European gas prices. You can convert all the dollars you want with fees of 1% or less. European gas costs more than double the price of American gas. You're paying high prices because your gas is taxed heavily, not because oil is denominated in dollars.
karl11 8y ago
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.
- hndamien 8y ago
  These problems are not as bad with an electric car like a Tesla. I have left AC on but the battery was fine. I have been dropped off while the driver had no key, and it posed a slight issue once they stopped the car and got off the seat. Obviously, no CO poisoning.
- dx034 8y ago
  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.
hangonhn 8y ago
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 minutes it took me to start the car, get the code, and shut it off, it had produced a dangerous level of CO. I left the garage and went inside. About 30 minutes later while I was in bed my Nest smoke/CO detectors alerted me to CO in the hallway connecting my house to the garage. I ventilated the entire house and garage and the alarm stopped. I did get a light headache from the short exposure. Moral of the story, never run a car inside the garage with the door closed and always have CO detectors throughout the house. Nest probably saved my life that night from my own mistake. If we want a more general solution, we should look beyond the keyless fob and just make CO detectors a requirement. You don’t need fancy ones like Nest. Cheaper ones that cost 20 dollars still works.
- tadfisher 8y ago
  Yep, that's my rule even with properly-running engines: The car won't start until the garage door is open. If I could hack up some sort of ignition interlock such that an Arduino or Pi could broadcast a killswitch signal while the garage door is closed, I could more effectively enforce that rule.
  - FeepingCreature 8y ago
    CO sensor outside the car to force a shutoff?
    - organsnyder 8y ago
      I've thought about installing a CO sensor that would open the garage door.
  - luma 8y ago
    I built a quick project to address this from the other direction: https://github.com/aderusha/MQTTCarPresence https://github.com/aderusha/MQTTCarPresence If the car is turned on and in range of your home WiFi, it makes sure the door is open. This is mostly a convenience thing (when I leave home in the morning, it opens the door when I start the car and closes it after I leave, same process returning home) but it also address the concerns floated in the article.
lholden 8y ago
There are certainly a large list of reasons a car should be automatically shutting off without the keys present, but I feel it's also important to put the article and the figures they use into perspective. Check out the GM Ignition issues where the cars lose electrical power because the key ignition moves out of the "on" position. The owners own key ring adding additional weight increasing the chance of this happening. This literally created the opposite problem... Keyed ignitions causing accidents. We are so used to vehicles that it's so easy to forget that they are large and heavy machines. Just driving the car to work every day puts you at risk. The article reads like... complaining about the rain while a tornado is heading your way. Anyhow. Don't get me wrong... getting out of your car with your keys should certainly make the car yell at you and then automatically shut itself off after a period of time. With the option for the user to manually turn these things off of course. (I am a firm believer that one should be allowed to shoot themselves in the foot if they explicitly go out of their way to make it possible). I am just a bit irritated at the article. :)
- romwell 8y ago
  I really don't think the article is saying much more than you do. A simple, silly, trvially fixable design oversight caused a number of deaths when the product became common enough. The only way to nudge the manufacturers to fix it is by raising awareness, which is what the article does - which would, hopefully, lead to proper regulation. Additionally, we can only expect the number of accidents like this to rise as the number of newer cars increases. This article is also a PSA. While a lot of people die in car accidents, I see it as an orthogonal issue. Using your analogy, it's like complaining about floods in TX while there's a tornado in KS heading North.
danepowell 8y ago
Has anyone compared the rates of carbon monoxide poisoning with and without keyless ignition? I could actually see an argument for keyless being safer: if people can leave a car and completely forget to turn it off, they can certainly do that and forget to take the keys with them. At least with the keyless ignition you have the _possibility_ of being alerted to your mistake (my Toyota beeps so loud that it would be pretty much impossible to ignore).
jaggederest 8y ago
I think this is actually a stronger argument for sealing the garage off from the house, detached if possible. There are any number of bad things being stored in many garages that make it useful to seal your garage well away from the house.
- toomuchgov 8y ago
  Or, at least in the US, not have the A/C handler in the garage.
jonhendry18 8y ago
I'd think this would be more common with remote start.
stmfreak 8y ago
While tragic, I don't want my government protecting me from myself. I mean, where does this end? What about leaving the stove on? What about using my barbecue indoors? There have been cases where government intervention to help may have actually been worse than that original problem, such as the rise in cases of forgetting children in rear seats on warm days after laws were written forbidding car seats in the front where parents find it harder to forget their child.
hedora 8y ago
I wonder how many deaths there are per year due to remote start. A kid (or another key in your pocket) presses one button on the dongle twice, and the whole household dies.
twblalock 8y ago
If you're reading this and you don't have carbon monoxide detectors in your home, please go buy some. They are generally integrated in modern smoke detectors, and the standalone units are pretty cheap. I'd recommend having one in the garage if you have a gas water heater. But you should definitely have them in the house no matter what.
- Cthulhu_ 8y ago
  And doubly so if you have a caravan or trailer. Source: Old heater in a caravan broke, bit too much fuel in it during ignition caused a small explosion that blew the chimney (?) pipe off. We got away with a collective headache at least.
- SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
  ...and test them regularly!
- dpark 8y ago
  > They are generally integrated in modern smoke detectors No they are not. Most smoke detectors do not have carbon monoxide detection built in. You can buy combination units but you should not assume a smoke detector has carbon monoxide detection just because it’s new. Verify that the unit you purchase provides detection of both of you want both in one. And replace your detectors if they’re 10 years old (or don’t have a date, in which case they’re way older than 10 years).
peterwwillis 8y ago
Here's the thing: leaving a car running and unoccupied is, from an engineering perspective, completely stupid. Running a car on idle for a long time basically slowly degrades it. It's just sitting there getting hot and wasting gas. Without adequate cooling, the engine will overheat. And if you have multiple catalytic converters, the car can explode from built up gases. Many manuals explicitly state not to idle the car for more than 10-20 minutes. You don't even need to idle it. Many cars today have automatic engine shut off and start when the car is stopped at a red light. New cars could easily add this to prevent idling. Now consider the non-technical reasons not to let it idle. One, someone can steal it. Two, it's wasting gas. Three, it's pumping harmful gases into the atmosphere and creating smog. Four, someone could die from carbon monoxide. The solution is simple. The default should be to turn off the car if the keys are gone after idling for 10 minutes, with an override switch to let it idle for, let's say an hour. After an hour you have to flip the switch again. Regardless of whether you think this is necessary, there are hundreds of such modifications already that add up to make cars safer and more reliable. You can't switch into or out of park or reverse without depressing the brake. You can't remove the keys without being in park. Your can't operate Bluetooth controls while the car is in motion. So it's not like these changes are new or difficult. Automakers add them over time as they see the need. But when they don't act, it's up to us to pass legislation to require them.
- rpcope1 8y ago
  > Running a car on idle for a long time basically slowly degrades it. It's just sitting there getting hot and wasting gas. Without adequate cooling, the engine will overheat. And if you have multiple catalytic converters, the car can explode from built up gases. Many manuals explicitly state not to idle the car for more than 10-20 minutes. Do you have a citation for any of this? I think letting an engine idle for extended periods of time does run up the hours on the engine (if you've got the sort of engine where you would even think about adding an hour meter, anyways), but especially if not under a load, I would very, _very_ surprised if you incurred actual damage letting the engine just run. The cooling system on every car I've ever encountered is more the sufficient to keep the engine at the correct operating temperature indefinitely, even if it's real hot out.
labster 8y ago
Another problem solved by electric cars. The transition can't come soon enough.
beamatronic 8y ago
How do you not know your cars engine is running?
- ascorbic 8y ago
  The victims all seem to be elderly.
- frankus 8y ago
  My car is quiet enough that if the radio is on at moderate volume the engine at idle is pretty much inaudible.
ClassAndBurn 8y ago
A City Car Share used to park behind my house and I had to call the company a half dozen times because someone left the keyless hybrid running after they dropped it off. I had them unlock it so I could turn it just so there wasn't a running car next to my back yard. This was exasperated by people who weren't familiar with the car but it was a real enough problem that I knew to listen for it.
samcheng 8y ago
Tesla handles this quite well. You stop driving, then open the door. This puts the car in park and engages the parking brake. Other stuff happens like the door handles present and the stereo volume turns down. Then when you close the door (if nobody is detected in the driver's seat) the car shuts off, much to the chagrin of any children sitting in the back seat listening to the music. As you walk away, the car locks automatically. The car then automatically wakes up as you approach it. Sit in, put on your seatbelt, and put it into drive to go. It's certainly VERY easy to leave an internal combustion car running (even a keyed one) if you are used to that!
- spacenick88 8y ago
  And even then the worst that can happen from leaving an electric car turned on in your garage is your battery getting drained. Even keeping the lights on this will likely take days when fully charged.
  - brandonsometig 8y ago
    Electric cars don't really have a 'running' state. The motors are either engaged or they are off.
TelAvivHacker 8y ago
NY Times loves to run articles on secret dangers of modern conveniences.
lordnacho 8y ago
Is it not normal for a keyless car to beep like crazy when you leave the car with the key inside? My car does this. As soon as it detects the key is not inside the car it will beep and remind you the car is on. The other problem this solves is that you don't want to be driving somewhere without the key either, eg when you're dropping off your wife and she happens to have the key.
- Cthulhu_ 8y ago
  Same, and exactly; the car should just shut down when it detects the key is not inside the car. Could someone just get in and drive off? I'm fairly sure this might be true for older models though.
  - joelhaasnoot 8y ago
    This is quite dangerous going down the highway at 55mph when a GPS jammer malfunction causes the fob to 'disappear'.
  - aequitas 8y ago
    The keyless car I owned would warn and beep like crazy about the key missing, but it would continue driving. Then when coming to a halt and shifting into neutral/park it would deny switching back to drive. So no danger while driving and no risk for stealing.
    - artmageddon 8y ago
      My Honda CR-V will periodically beep with "NO KEY" lighting on up on the dashboard(say I give my wife the key to get inside our home on a crappy day while I go park the car elsewhere), but doesn't make impose any restrictions on using the car while it's on, regardless of your current speed or gear. Once you shut the car off though, that's it.
  - lordnacho 8y ago
    > the car should just shut down when it detects the key is not inside the car. Well, you can't have the car shutting off if the key is suddenly not detected. The battery might be low, or the key gets dropped behind some metal. But it does mean that after you've turned it off you are stuck there.
CharlesMerriam2 8y ago
Let's talk about real killers, which kill far more. https://on.cc.com/1hCMleQ https://on.cc.com/1hCMleQ. Falling Coconuts kill dozens of times more people but no one is seriously looking at active countermeasures.
- mavhc 8y ago
  Not sleeping under coconut trees? Vehicles kill 3000 people a day, that's before the pollution they cause.
Animats 8y ago
Why is the default is to leave the engine running with the fob out of range of the vehicle? I'd expect that the default would be to turn off the engine. If you really want to leave the engine running with the vehicle empty, that should take special action to set up. Maybe that should only be available with the "remote engine start / preheat / precool" option, which would include interior and exterior CO detectors.
- gambiting 8y ago
  Why would it not be the default? You started the engine, but you never stopped it - so it should keep running,no? As for the fob in range issue - the keyless system is not perfect and I've gotten a warning(while driving!) That the key is missing , even though it was sitting safely in my pocket - shutting the engine down based on that is not ideal.
  - michaelt 8y ago
    Most modern cars in my country turn off the engine when you idle at the lights, confident they can restart the engine in a fraction of a second as you press the pedals. So there's plenty of precedent for software turning off the engine (when stationary and not in gear) without being explicitly commanded to. It's true you wouldn't want to do it while the car is moving - but the ECU knows if you're moving or not. The rule would instead be "turn off engine if card is out of range, not in gear, stationary for 60 seconds or more, and user hasn't disabled this feature"
- JepZ 8y ago
  > I'd expect that the default would be to turn off the engine. That would be very dangerous. For example, think about the following scenario:the co-driver has the key within his pocket, he leaves the car and the driver wants to drive around the corner to find a parking spot. So the driver accelerates and after a few meters the engine would turn off and his breaks would be completely manual. That could cause some serious accidents.
  - IshKebab 8y ago
gordon_freeman 8y ago
Something does not add up in this article unless I am missing something. So safety features such as alert tone if engine kept on running for some time might be missed by older people who might have difficulty to hear but I assume that if a home has a garage to park the car then it should have and usually has a Carbon Monoxide alarm inside the house as well. Would not it start making loud alert noise when CO is increased at harmful levels?
- Johnny555 8y ago
  Florida (where at least one of these deaths occurred) only recently began requiring CO detectors and only for new construction. Requires that every building for which a building permit is issued for new construction on or after July 1, 2008, and having a fossil-fuel-burning heater or appliance, a fireplace, or an attached garage shall have an approved operational carbon monoxide alarm installed within 10 feet of each room used for sleeping purposes. http://www.ncsl.org/research/environment-and-natural-resources/carbon-monoxide-detectors-state-statutes.aspx http://www.ncsl.org/research/environment-and-natural-resourc...
JepZ 8y ago
If the key leaves my KIA while the engine is running, an alarm sounds. Works perfectly well and if you ignore alarms without knowing what they are about... Well, then no system can help you. So the real issue here, is that some cars do not seem to have such an alarm (probably should become mandatory) and that many owners don't know how to properly use their cars. After all, there is a reason why you need a license to drive those things.
Angostura 8y ago
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.
- NLips 8y ago
  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
  - Angostura 8y ago
    > my car won't autorestart the engine if I've opened the door Ah, interesting - I've never tested that, but it would make sense.
- ironash 8y ago
  This happened to me with a hire car. I parked the car and pressed the button to stop the engine. The engine cut out so I got out of the car, locking the vehicle with the remote as I walked away. After some time I was contacted by the security team of the company I was visiting to tell me the engine was running on my vehicle. The auto engine off had kicked in as i pressed the engine stop button, but because the engine had stopped I didn't hold the button for long enough to actually switch the engine off. When I locked the car the turn indicators flashed with a non-standard pattern to warn that the lock had failed (because the engine was not off) but because it was a hire car I did not recognise it. When I drove the car home the same thing happened at the end of the journey but this time I was expecting it and switched the car off properly.
  - serpix 8y ago
    Did the dashboard display and lights go out and did it not emit a tone when you opened the door?
205guy 8y ago
Another issue negated by electric cars. No burning fossil fuels, no carbon monoxide in my garage. Ironic that the only mention of EVs in this thread was about how Teslas turn themselves off and lock automatically. It's like everyone is complaining about having to do wiring at colos and some techs getting accidentally electrocuted, while I spin up another instance on AWS. BTW, my two Nissan Leaf EVs have the a keyless fob thing, and like the ICE cars, they beep if you leave with the car on. It seems like manufacturers just can't come up with a sensible and intuitive way for the keyless fob and car state to interact. Maybe the idea of putting a physical key into the ignition was a better paradigm.
- Shivetya 8y ago
  and here with GM (I own a Chevy Volt) they have decided the phone app provided to remote unlock/lock the car and start it will now be a paid service to the tune of 14.99 a month via Onstar. Used to be free to use the phone app to do these things. Better yet GM now will collect data from usage and send it to affiliates. Now I know other manufactures charge for navigation and such after a trial period but GM is going to charge just to use a phone app to unlock/lock/start your car. They have plans with data that go up to 60 a month
  - organsnyder 8y ago
    Chrysler is the same way (we have a Pacifica PHEV). Our one-year free trial just ended, and there's no way I'm going to spend that much money for such a small amount of convenience.
- monkeynotes 8y ago
  I'm still unsure how a country could switch from gas to EV. Could a city keep up with the power demands when everyone plugs in their EVs at night? I am assuming we'd have to build more power generation capacity, and what is the source? How do you transmit all the high capacity power to quick charge stations on the highway when you have 200+ cars an hour needing to quick charge? It all sounds like an enormous infrastructure upgrade. Europe is already committing to EV and outlawing gas engines in the next 10-20 years so it will be interesting to learn how they plan to accommodate the huge electricity generation and transmission demands that go with that.
paulmd 8y ago
Pretty easily solved with a $15 carbon monoxide detector. They are required by rental codes around here, and are just a plain good idea. Unlike smoke detectors they rarely fault out due to smoke from toasters/etc.
wycy 8y ago
Lexus is noted in the article as being one of the problematic cars, but mine beeps fairly insistently if you get out of the car with the keys with the ignition still on. I get that people are mentally on autopilot sometimes--I certainly am often--but I feel like what it does already should be enough to snap you out of it. The line has to be drawn somewhere. I think it's unreasonable to count on computers to warn and protect us about every possible mistake people might make.
- RankingMember 8y ago
  Isn't one of the major benefits of computer automation that such adjustments (e.g. adding a safety feature that uses existing hardware) can be made with little cost/effort? If a few lines of code will save 2 lives a year, is it worth it? I get where you're coming from and you ask a very interesting question: where do we draw the line? I think a good place to draw it is after we've eliminated accidental fatalities.
yial 8y ago
It’s horrible that people have lost their lives... but I don’t see this as an issue with the car. I actually think it calls for having more CO detectors in homes (along with fire alarms ). I have a key less ignition car, and if I leave it running... I want it to stay running. With or without the key. However, the audible alert seems like it would be valuable. What about having the Fob vibrate periodically when outside the car and the car is running ?
schiffern 8y ago
>Toyota models, including Lexus, have figured in almost half of the carbon monoxide fatalities and injuries identified by The Times. Toyota says its keyless ignition system “meets or exceeds all relevant federal safety standards.” That's quite significant, and I wonder why that is? I have a hypothesis: Personally I've had problems with Toyotas (specifically, Prius GenIII and Camry XV50) where trying to shut off the car too fast, eg using "muscle memory," results in the car not shutting off. At first glance (and according to the manual), the steps to shutting off the Prius / Camry appear to be: 1. Shift the car into Park. 2. Press the ignition button. 3. Exit the vehicle. Simple, right? Well, it's not. If you don't wait ~1 second between step 1 and step 2, the car has a race condition where it doesn't realize that you already put it in Park, so it displays a "Shift to Park" message and fails to shut down. To fix, you have to shift the car into Reverse (or really, Anything-But-Park), shift it back into Park, and press the button again. This sequence is extremely confusing, especially if you don't notice the error message. Neither conventional shifters nor conventional key-based ignitions make you wait -- when you put it in gear, it's in gear! Toyota's system has hidden state that's related, but separate from the physical movements of the shift lever and the start button (unlike a conventional key and shifter). So if you want to reliably shut off the car, here are the actual steps to shutting down a Prius / Camry: 1. Shift the car into Park. 2. Wait a beat (for the vehicle to realize it's in Park). 3. Press the ignition button. 4. Exit the vehicle. The proper way for Toyota to do it would have been to buffer the inputs in order, so the same sequence of actions always results in the same result, and the mere act of speeding up one's muscle memory doesn't result in unexpected operation (ie, acting just like the old, more-easily-predictable physical controls).
- ataturk 8y ago
  BMW: Pull up and park, press stop button. Get out, lock door, and walk away. Easy. The car puts itself into park, etc. The only problem is when I get into other cars that don't do this. I honestly don't like the all-electronic shifters. I feel like the car could end up in state in which shifter inputs get ignored and then I would be unable to shift into neutral or otherwise stop the transfer of power to the wheels. I also happen to think that intelligence agencies know how to assassinate people by taking over their cars and causing runaway conditions that the driver is unable to negate. A mechanical kill switch like on a motorcylce would be a great feature, as long as non-assisted brakes and steering would still function. I know that modern aircraft separate all these linkages electronically now, but I also know that modern aircraft have triple redundancy and that cars don't.

169 points by helloworld 8y ago

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

I suspect if they looked at attached garages and their toll when cars are left running the incident will be higher. How many people have died because of attached garages? Folks can help mitigate this by having carbon monoxide detectors in their garage and in the house. Car manufactures tho should have this built in, if the car is not running and the CO level inside get's too high, shut it off and sound the car alarm. The only challenge is that CO sensors seems to need replacing more than the life of the car and of course the price of car will go up and those without the need will be upset.

hedora 8y ago
I wonder how many people died because they locked their keys in a running vehicle in the garage, called a locksmith, but didn’t think about CO entering the house while they waited. At the rate of 2 per 100’s of millions of people per year, these scenarios become plausible.

forapurpose 8y ago

I assume people start their cars to warm the cabin. I expect there are much more efficient ways to warm the cabin than using excess heat from an internal combustion engine under the hood. Perhaps the solution is to provide a way to warm the cabin (including seats and steering wheel) very rapidly when the car starts, or provide a way to warm the cabin without starting the engine. The latter solution requires an energy source. Perhaps a hybrid car's batteries are it - not an option until recently, but hybrids are now relatively common - and the energy could be used efficiently: Ambient air heaters, of course; plus heaters directly in seats and steering wheel to warm them more efficiently than the ambient air would; plus of course sensors to shut down heaters when things are sufficiently warm. OT: Did the NY Times change their layout recently? For the first time, IMHO, it's gone from functional to appealing.

cornellwright 8y ago
This was one thing I really liked about driving an electric car in the winter - you can start the heater remotely through the app. Since it's an electric heater it warms up way faster than ICE. If it's plugged in, it will not even drain the battery.
- tom_ 8y ago
  My old diesel car had an electric heater for the cabin. (The engine just didn't produce enough waste heat, I assume. In winter, the bonnet would still be icy after a 20 minute drive.) Such a great feature! The heater didn't start until the engine was running, or anything clever - it was a late 90s design, so nothing fancy - but you'd still get noticeably hot air within 2 minutes of setting off, and, with controls set appropriately, the cabin would become uncomfortably hot and dry, like a sauna, after about 5 minutes. I've got a petrol car now, a later model of the same line, and the designers clearly decided that there was no need for any trickery, and they could just use the heat from the engine. Big mistake! It's absolutely rubbish by comparison.

abootstrapper 8y ago

Keyless ignition over complicates the solution to a simple problem. I’ve never liked them on those grounds alone, and I hadn’t even considered the risks for injury. Then again I’ve always felt that more bells and whistles on a car are just more opportunities for breakage and repairs.

kylec 8y ago
Most keyless systems have a physical key backup in case stuff fails. So if the system breaks you're no worse off than a car that has a physical key. Also, in my experience, keyless systems are pretty reliable, I've never had one fail on me or anyone in my family. I also really like the convenience they provide in being able to lock, unlock, and start my car without needing to take anything out of my pocket. If I can help it, I'll never buy another car without a keyless system.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

helloworld 8y ago

This is certainly an interesting case study in the pitfalls of behavioral design, but one important detail that the story glosses over is how rare these incidents are: More than two dozen people [have been] killed by carbon monoxide nationwide since 2006 after a keyless-ignition vehicle was inadvertently left running in a garage. 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. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passenger_vehicles_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passenger_vehicles_in_the_Unit...

romwell 8y ago
You are asking the wrong question here. The right question to ask is how many CO deaths from accidentally leaving the car running in the garage were happening before the introduction of key fobs vs. now. The difference amounts to the multitude of easily avoidable deaths that lie entirely on the auto manufacturer's shoulders. A dozen people is a dozen people too many. Stopping the engine when exiting the car with a fob should be the default, as it is consistent with the old, physical key behavior - and will prevent someone from driving off with your car while you have the key (as happened to someone in the thread).
- yock 8y ago
  > ...how many CO deaths from accidentally leaving the car running in the garage were happening before the introduction of key fobs vs. now. The great thing about the free market is that information spurs innovation. News stories like these make consumers aware of risks they couldn't recognize before. Now we, as informed buyers, can seek out these safety features in the products we buy.
  - MereInterest 8y ago
    Yeah, no. Humans are awful at estimating any low-probability event. That's why seatbelts and air bags took so long to catch on, despite being positive changes.

hi41 8y ago

>a software change that it said could be accomplished for pennies per vehicle. In the face of auto industry opposition, the agency let the plan languish, though it says a rule is still under consideration. Why the car industry would oppose such a minor fix is beyond me. If it does not even hurt the bottom line, why not make that change.

Swizec 8y ago
Many reasons why they’d oppose. Making it automatic means you become liable when it doesn’t work. Software has bugs. Adding it to older cars means you have to admit your cars aren’t safe and that’s hard plus recalls are annoying to deal with. People are fed up with all the beeping in modern cars and are becoming alarm deaf. I’m sure there’s others.
emodendroket 8y ago
I'd think some drivers prefer the current behavior. Like if you don't have a garage and live somewhere with cold winters you probably want to be able to start it and walk away.
- oh_sigh 8y ago
  Sure, but 30 mins is more than enough time to warm up in situations where externally powered heaters aren't required. Surely there must be some safe ground that would not drastically affect most drivers, but still save lives
  - emodendroket 8y ago
    Yeah, that's fair. I drive a manual car, which makes it very hard to absent-mindedly leave your car running (at least if you park it in gear, but I think most people do).
fyfy18 8y ago
I have a 2010 Prius with keyless entry and start. If the car is on and you close any door without the key in the vehicle it will make a loud audible beeping noise. It means if you jump out to get something from the trunk, it first starts beeping when the drivers door is closed and again when the trunk is closed. Pretty hard to miss. If you try and lock the car while it is on (using the keyless entry), it will just produce a continuous audible noise and won’t lock - again pretty hard to miss. The same thing happens if you try and lock a key in the vehicle.

tzakrajs 8y ago

My 2015 Ford automatically shuts off after roughly 15 minutes of being without the key whether you start it from inside or outside of the vehicle.

AlphaWeaver 8y ago
The article explains Ford began adding this feature to its cars in 2013.
TheForumTroll 8y ago
That is a good thing since some newer Fords leak CO into the interior. I'm sure they wouldn't have added it if they could've gotten away with doing nothing.
- tzakrajs 8y ago
  Thank you for the tip! I am going to do research into my Taurus to see if it is affected.
foobarian 8y ago
This is a good feature. At work we used to get emails about people leaving their lights on, now we get emails about people who left their car running (!) in the garage. Combination of keyless start and quiet engines is the culprit.
gambiting 8y ago
Hopefully not when driving though?
- tzakrajs 8y ago
  LMFAO I have to try this now. I will report back tomorrow. I have to get a Faraday cage now.

spraak 8y ago

I've certainly often forgotten to turn off the Prii [1] I've used. [1] http://content.usatoday.com/communities/driveon/post/2011/02/toyota-prius-prii-prium-priuses-plural-james-lipton/1 http://content.usatoday.com/communities/driveon/post/2011/02...

jedberg 8y ago
The fact that you have to link to that article to justify your use of Prii says a lot about Toyota's marketing. ;) Also, obviously not nearly as dangerous given that it shuts off the engine when it is idle, on or not.
- spraak 8y ago
  I used it playfully/jokingly, but perhaps in poor taste given the article's content
dnautics 8y ago
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.
- perl4ever 8y ago
  My car (a Honda) won't lock with the button on the door handle if the key fob is inside, so I don't forget it.
  - twblalock 8y ago
    My Prius also has that feature. As far as I know, they all do.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - dnautics 8y ago

rdiddly 8y ago

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?

emodendroket 8y ago
That seems like a misreading.
clairity 8y ago
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 strikes. we address that particular danger with a relatively straightforward technology, the lightning rod. so i'd expect the response here would be of similar magnitude (rather than some convoluted rube goldbergian contraption). the auto-shutoff mechanism seems to fit the bill and some cars are already fitted with it. so all in all, it's worth being aware of this danger and the solution, but not worth spending much more time thinking about it. it's much more fruitful to focus on reducing one's heart disease vectors, cancer risks and distracted driving.
- dmurray 8y ago
  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.
  - InitialLastName 8y ago
    This. LIghtning rods are a very cheap insurance policy against the enormous property damage that lightning does to your building (think fire + widespread electrical damage).
- 8y ago

emodendroket 8y ago

I guess one advantage of driving a manual car is you won't make that mistake after violently stalling your car a few times.

perl4ever 8y ago
I learned to drive in a manual transmission truck made in 1987, with a clutch interlock. But I bought an '87 car with a manual transmission last year, and to my surprise, it doesn't have a clutch interlock. So I have inadvertently started it in gear once or twice. As it happens, I also have a 2016 car with a manual transmission and it is keyless - I haven't had any problems with it.

jedberg 8y ago

> Despite years of deaths, regulatory action has lagged. In California at least, all new homes and all rentals are required to have CO detectors. It seems like that would be a good regulation to have nationwide, which would help with this problem as well as other CO related issues.

kemitche 8y ago

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...

Qwertie 8y ago
The car would probably be undrivable in India
- schiffern 8y ago
  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.
joshvm 8y ago
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/S2211335517300013 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221133551...
- schiffern 8y ago
  >A $10 detector would have probably saved the gentleman's life. True, but making the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards requiring the $5 sensor in that $10 detector in every vehicle equipped with keyless start (or perhaps, every vehicle) would lead to nearly 100% deployment as the vehicle fleet is replaced. By comparison, despite decades of passing laws and funding public education campaigns, only 33% of households ("occupied units") having a working CO detectors[1], and 40% of "working" detectors failed to alarm in hazardous levels[2]. So overall, just 20% of households have adequate CO protection. FTA: > From news reports, lawsuits, police and fire records and incidents tracked by advocacy groups, The Times has identified 28 deaths and 45 injuries since 2006, but the figures could be higher. Let's estimate they found 1/3 of all cases, for a total of 56 deaths and 135 injuries. Estimating $6m per statistical life and $3m per injury (some injuries, like brain injuries, can be more than $6m for lifetime medical care and lost productivity, but this estimate is intentionally conservative). That's $61.75m annually, compared to the average of 13,532,750 annual vehicles sold in that time period[3], so about $4.5 of harm reduced per vehicle. So economically it seems like a wash, and it prevents awful tragedies. Sounds like a good idea to me. [1] https://www.census.gov/prod/2008pubs/h150-07.pdf https://www.census.gov/prod/2008pubs/h150-07.pdf, pp14 [2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3222366/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3222366/ [3] https://www.statista.com/statistics/199983/us-vehicle-sales-since-1951/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/199983/us-vehicle-sales-...

tptacek 8y ago

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 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14705990

emodendroket 8y ago
To be fair it does sound like the cars ran for hours in some of these cases.
jacquesm 8y ago
That's a pretty impressive memory feat.
- tptacek 8y ago
  It was a memorable claim!
jmgao 8y ago
It seems like there's reasonable evidence that this is true: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28768080 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28768080

lisper 8y ago

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.

emodendroket 8y ago
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.
- lisper 8y ago
  > engine noise piped through the speakers LOL! What kind of car is it?
  - emodendroket 8y ago
    A Volkswagen GTI, but BMWs do the same thing.
  - TheForumTroll 8y ago
    Many US cars have it. Ford F-150 for one.
mayniac 8y ago
This was my problem when I rented a keyless car for the first time last year. To preface, it was a v6 mustang which I wasn't actually expecting to be quiet, but in comparison to what I'm used to it was practically silent. Consider that cars have three usual running states: off, electrics on/engine off, everything on. How do you tell, quickly and conveniently, which state the car is in? With a key you can reach under the wheel and verify what state the car's in, in under a second. I haven't seen a keyless car system that was anywhere near that intuitive. Engine noise is usually the best indicator but as you've mentioned, cars are quiet now. With the rental car it took me a good half hour to figure out all the nuances of the keyless ignition. Compare that to seconds, occasionally minutes, of getting used to "normal" cars with keys/fobs.

petermcneeley 8y ago

Air quality sensors that would detect this any many other potential hazards would likely cost $5 or less. Even if lawsuits resolve this issue its interesting to see how its only resolved post harm.

pg_bot 8y ago

I'd rather see people install CO detectors within their homes as it is a more general solution to this problem. CO poisoning can occur with any fuel burning appliance in your home. It would be better to cover all sources instead of each one individually.

TorKlingberg 8y ago
A lot of homes don't have any fuel burning appliances. It varies between countries and places.

Theodores 8y ago

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.

rascul 8y ago
> CO can not just kill the occupants, you could have a big pile-up on a motorway due to CO poisoning. Do you have a source for this? I would be interested in reading about it.
- Theodores 8y ago
  There are many stories, Google 'carbon monoxide police ford explorer' to start. Holes drilled in the vehicle for the flashing lights and other accessories were given as the cause in those police incidents, of which I think there were a few.
thaumasiotes 8y ago
> 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. This contributes nothing to European gas prices. You can convert all the dollars you want with fees of 1% or less. European gas costs more than double the price of American gas. You're paying high prices because your gas is taxed heavily, not because oil is denominated in dollars.

karl11 8y ago

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.

hndamien 8y ago
These problems are not as bad with an electric car like a Tesla. I have left AC on but the battery was fine. I have been dropped off while the driver had no key, and it posed a slight issue once they stopped the car and got off the seat. Obviously, no CO poisoning.
dx034 8y ago
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.

hangonhn 8y ago

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 minutes it took me to start the car, get the code, and shut it off, it had produced a dangerous level of CO. I left the garage and went inside. About 30 minutes later while I was in bed my Nest smoke/CO detectors alerted me to CO in the hallway connecting my house to the garage. I ventilated the entire house and garage and the alarm stopped. I did get a light headache from the short exposure. Moral of the story, never run a car inside the garage with the door closed and always have CO detectors throughout the house. Nest probably saved my life that night from my own mistake. If we want a more general solution, we should look beyond the keyless fob and just make CO detectors a requirement. You don’t need fancy ones like Nest. Cheaper ones that cost 20 dollars still works.

tadfisher 8y ago
Yep, that's my rule even with properly-running engines: The car won't start until the garage door is open. If I could hack up some sort of ignition interlock such that an Arduino or Pi could broadcast a killswitch signal while the garage door is closed, I could more effectively enforce that rule.
- FeepingCreature 8y ago
  CO sensor outside the car to force a shutoff?
  - organsnyder 8y ago
    I've thought about installing a CO sensor that would open the garage door.
- luma 8y ago
  I built a quick project to address this from the other direction: https://github.com/aderusha/MQTTCarPresence https://github.com/aderusha/MQTTCarPresence If the car is turned on and in range of your home WiFi, it makes sure the door is open. This is mostly a convenience thing (when I leave home in the morning, it opens the door when I start the car and closes it after I leave, same process returning home) but it also address the concerns floated in the article.

lholden 8y ago

There are certainly a large list of reasons a car should be automatically shutting off without the keys present, but I feel it's also important to put the article and the figures they use into perspective. Check out the GM Ignition issues where the cars lose electrical power because the key ignition moves out of the "on" position. The owners own key ring adding additional weight increasing the chance of this happening. This literally created the opposite problem... Keyed ignitions causing accidents. We are so used to vehicles that it's so easy to forget that they are large and heavy machines. Just driving the car to work every day puts you at risk. The article reads like... complaining about the rain while a tornado is heading your way. Anyhow. Don't get me wrong... getting out of your car with your keys should certainly make the car yell at you and then automatically shut itself off after a period of time. With the option for the user to manually turn these things off of course. (I am a firm believer that one should be allowed to shoot themselves in the foot if they explicitly go out of their way to make it possible). I am just a bit irritated at the article. :)

romwell 8y ago
I really don't think the article is saying much more than you do. A simple, silly, trvially fixable design oversight caused a number of deaths when the product became common enough. The only way to nudge the manufacturers to fix it is by raising awareness, which is what the article does - which would, hopefully, lead to proper regulation. Additionally, we can only expect the number of accidents like this to rise as the number of newer cars increases. This article is also a PSA. While a lot of people die in car accidents, I see it as an orthogonal issue. Using your analogy, it's like complaining about floods in TX while there's a tornado in KS heading North.

danepowell 8y ago

Has anyone compared the rates of carbon monoxide poisoning with and without keyless ignition? I could actually see an argument for keyless being safer: if people can leave a car and completely forget to turn it off, they can certainly do that and forget to take the keys with them. At least with the keyless ignition you have the _possibility_ of being alerted to your mistake (my Toyota beeps so loud that it would be pretty much impossible to ignore).

jaggederest 8y ago

I think this is actually a stronger argument for sealing the garage off from the house, detached if possible. There are any number of bad things being stored in many garages that make it useful to seal your garage well away from the house.

toomuchgov 8y ago
Or, at least in the US, not have the A/C handler in the garage.

jonhendry18 8y ago

I'd think this would be more common with remote start.

stmfreak 8y ago

While tragic, I don't want my government protecting me from myself. I mean, where does this end? What about leaving the stove on? What about using my barbecue indoors? There have been cases where government intervention to help may have actually been worse than that original problem, such as the rise in cases of forgetting children in rear seats on warm days after laws were written forbidding car seats in the front where parents find it harder to forget their child.

hedora 8y ago

I wonder how many deaths there are per year due to remote start. A kid (or another key in your pocket) presses one button on the dongle twice, and the whole household dies.

twblalock 8y ago

If you're reading this and you don't have carbon monoxide detectors in your home, please go buy some. They are generally integrated in modern smoke detectors, and the standalone units are pretty cheap. I'd recommend having one in the garage if you have a gas water heater. But you should definitely have them in the house no matter what.

Cthulhu_ 8y ago
And doubly so if you have a caravan or trailer. Source: Old heater in a caravan broke, bit too much fuel in it during ignition caused a small explosion that blew the chimney (?) pipe off. We got away with a collective headache at least.
SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
...and test them regularly!
dpark 8y ago
> They are generally integrated in modern smoke detectors No they are not. Most smoke detectors do not have carbon monoxide detection built in. You can buy combination units but you should not assume a smoke detector has carbon monoxide detection just because it’s new. Verify that the unit you purchase provides detection of both of you want both in one. And replace your detectors if they’re 10 years old (or don’t have a date, in which case they’re way older than 10 years).

peterwwillis 8y ago

Here's the thing: leaving a car running and unoccupied is, from an engineering perspective, completely stupid. Running a car on idle for a long time basically slowly degrades it. It's just sitting there getting hot and wasting gas. Without adequate cooling, the engine will overheat. And if you have multiple catalytic converters, the car can explode from built up gases. Many manuals explicitly state not to idle the car for more than 10-20 minutes. You don't even need to idle it. Many cars today have automatic engine shut off and start when the car is stopped at a red light. New cars could easily add this to prevent idling. Now consider the non-technical reasons not to let it idle. One, someone can steal it. Two, it's wasting gas. Three, it's pumping harmful gases into the atmosphere and creating smog. Four, someone could die from carbon monoxide. The solution is simple. The default should be to turn off the car if the keys are gone after idling for 10 minutes, with an override switch to let it idle for, let's say an hour. After an hour you have to flip the switch again. Regardless of whether you think this is necessary, there are hundreds of such modifications already that add up to make cars safer and more reliable. You can't switch into or out of park or reverse without depressing the brake. You can't remove the keys without being in park. Your can't operate Bluetooth controls while the car is in motion. So it's not like these changes are new or difficult. Automakers add them over time as they see the need. But when they don't act, it's up to us to pass legislation to require them.

rpcope1 8y ago
> Running a car on idle for a long time basically slowly degrades it. It's just sitting there getting hot and wasting gas. Without adequate cooling, the engine will overheat. And if you have multiple catalytic converters, the car can explode from built up gases. Many manuals explicitly state not to idle the car for more than 10-20 minutes. Do you have a citation for any of this? I think letting an engine idle for extended periods of time does run up the hours on the engine (if you've got the sort of engine where you would even think about adding an hour meter, anyways), but especially if not under a load, I would very, _very_ surprised if you incurred actual damage letting the engine just run. The cooling system on every car I've ever encountered is more the sufficient to keep the engine at the correct operating temperature indefinitely, even if it's real hot out.

labster 8y ago

Another problem solved by electric cars. The transition can't come soon enough.

beamatronic 8y ago

How do you not know your cars engine is running?

ascorbic 8y ago
The victims all seem to be elderly.
frankus 8y ago
My car is quiet enough that if the radio is on at moderate volume the engine at idle is pretty much inaudible.

ClassAndBurn 8y ago

A City Car Share used to park behind my house and I had to call the company a half dozen times because someone left the keyless hybrid running after they dropped it off. I had them unlock it so I could turn it just so there wasn't a running car next to my back yard. This was exasperated by people who weren't familiar with the car but it was a real enough problem that I knew to listen for it.

samcheng 8y ago

Tesla handles this quite well. You stop driving, then open the door. This puts the car in park and engages the parking brake. Other stuff happens like the door handles present and the stereo volume turns down. Then when you close the door (if nobody is detected in the driver's seat) the car shuts off, much to the chagrin of any children sitting in the back seat listening to the music. As you walk away, the car locks automatically. The car then automatically wakes up as you approach it. Sit in, put on your seatbelt, and put it into drive to go. It's certainly VERY easy to leave an internal combustion car running (even a keyed one) if you are used to that!

spacenick88 8y ago
And even then the worst that can happen from leaving an electric car turned on in your garage is your battery getting drained. Even keeping the lights on this will likely take days when fully charged.
- brandonsometig 8y ago
  Electric cars don't really have a 'running' state. The motors are either engaged or they are off.

TelAvivHacker 8y ago

NY Times loves to run articles on secret dangers of modern conveniences.

lordnacho 8y ago

Is it not normal for a keyless car to beep like crazy when you leave the car with the key inside? My car does this. As soon as it detects the key is not inside the car it will beep and remind you the car is on. The other problem this solves is that you don't want to be driving somewhere without the key either, eg when you're dropping off your wife and she happens to have the key.

Cthulhu_ 8y ago
Same, and exactly; the car should just shut down when it detects the key is not inside the car. Could someone just get in and drive off? I'm fairly sure this might be true for older models though.
- joelhaasnoot 8y ago
  This is quite dangerous going down the highway at 55mph when a GPS jammer malfunction causes the fob to 'disappear'.
- aequitas 8y ago
  The keyless car I owned would warn and beep like crazy about the key missing, but it would continue driving. Then when coming to a halt and shifting into neutral/park it would deny switching back to drive. So no danger while driving and no risk for stealing.
  - artmageddon 8y ago
    My Honda CR-V will periodically beep with "NO KEY" lighting on up on the dashboard(say I give my wife the key to get inside our home on a crappy day while I go park the car elsewhere), but doesn't make impose any restrictions on using the car while it's on, regardless of your current speed or gear. Once you shut the car off though, that's it.
- lordnacho 8y ago
  > the car should just shut down when it detects the key is not inside the car. Well, you can't have the car shutting off if the key is suddenly not detected. The battery might be low, or the key gets dropped behind some metal. But it does mean that after you've turned it off you are stuck there.

CharlesMerriam2 8y ago

Let's talk about real killers, which kill far more. https://on.cc.com/1hCMleQ https://on.cc.com/1hCMleQ. Falling Coconuts kill dozens of times more people but no one is seriously looking at active countermeasures.

mavhc 8y ago
Not sleeping under coconut trees? Vehicles kill 3000 people a day, that's before the pollution they cause.

Animats 8y ago

Why is the default is to leave the engine running with the fob out of range of the vehicle? I'd expect that the default would be to turn off the engine. If you really want to leave the engine running with the vehicle empty, that should take special action to set up. Maybe that should only be available with the "remote engine start / preheat / precool" option, which would include interior and exterior CO detectors.

gambiting 8y ago
Why would it not be the default? You started the engine, but you never stopped it - so it should keep running,no? As for the fob in range issue - the keyless system is not perfect and I've gotten a warning(while driving!) That the key is missing , even though it was sitting safely in my pocket - shutting the engine down based on that is not ideal.
- michaelt 8y ago
  Most modern cars in my country turn off the engine when you idle at the lights, confident they can restart the engine in a fraction of a second as you press the pedals. So there's plenty of precedent for software turning off the engine (when stationary and not in gear) without being explicitly commanded to. It's true you wouldn't want to do it while the car is moving - but the ECU knows if you're moving or not. The rule would instead be "turn off engine if card is out of range, not in gear, stationary for 60 seconds or more, and user hasn't disabled this feature"
JepZ 8y ago
> I'd expect that the default would be to turn off the engine. That would be very dangerous. For example, think about the following scenario:the co-driver has the key within his pocket, he leaves the car and the driver wants to drive around the corner to find a parking spot. So the driver accelerates and after a few meters the engine would turn off and his breaks would be completely manual. That could cause some serious accidents.
- IshKebab 8y ago

gordon_freeman 8y ago

Something does not add up in this article unless I am missing something. So safety features such as alert tone if engine kept on running for some time might be missed by older people who might have difficulty to hear but I assume that if a home has a garage to park the car then it should have and usually has a Carbon Monoxide alarm inside the house as well. Would not it start making loud alert noise when CO is increased at harmful levels?

Johnny555 8y ago
Florida (where at least one of these deaths occurred) only recently began requiring CO detectors and only for new construction. Requires that every building for which a building permit is issued for new construction on or after July 1, 2008, and having a fossil-fuel-burning heater or appliance, a fireplace, or an attached garage shall have an approved operational carbon monoxide alarm installed within 10 feet of each room used for sleeping purposes. http://www.ncsl.org/research/environment-and-natural-resources/carbon-monoxide-detectors-state-statutes.aspx http://www.ncsl.org/research/environment-and-natural-resourc...

JepZ 8y ago

If the key leaves my KIA while the engine is running, an alarm sounds. Works perfectly well and if you ignore alarms without knowing what they are about... Well, then no system can help you. So the real issue here, is that some cars do not seem to have such an alarm (probably should become mandatory) and that many owners don't know how to properly use their cars. After all, there is a reason why you need a license to drive those things.

Angostura 8y ago

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.

NLips 8y ago
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
- Angostura 8y ago
  > my car won't autorestart the engine if I've opened the door Ah, interesting - I've never tested that, but it would make sense.
ironash 8y ago
This happened to me with a hire car. I parked the car and pressed the button to stop the engine. The engine cut out so I got out of the car, locking the vehicle with the remote as I walked away. After some time I was contacted by the security team of the company I was visiting to tell me the engine was running on my vehicle. The auto engine off had kicked in as i pressed the engine stop button, but because the engine had stopped I didn't hold the button for long enough to actually switch the engine off. When I locked the car the turn indicators flashed with a non-standard pattern to warn that the lock had failed (because the engine was not off) but because it was a hire car I did not recognise it. When I drove the car home the same thing happened at the end of the journey but this time I was expecting it and switched the car off properly.
- serpix 8y ago
  Did the dashboard display and lights go out and did it not emit a tone when you opened the door?

205guy 8y ago

Another issue negated by electric cars. No burning fossil fuels, no carbon monoxide in my garage. Ironic that the only mention of EVs in this thread was about how Teslas turn themselves off and lock automatically. It's like everyone is complaining about having to do wiring at colos and some techs getting accidentally electrocuted, while I spin up another instance on AWS. BTW, my two Nissan Leaf EVs have the a keyless fob thing, and like the ICE cars, they beep if you leave with the car on. It seems like manufacturers just can't come up with a sensible and intuitive way for the keyless fob and car state to interact. Maybe the idea of putting a physical key into the ignition was a better paradigm.

Shivetya 8y ago
and here with GM (I own a Chevy Volt) they have decided the phone app provided to remote unlock/lock the car and start it will now be a paid service to the tune of 14.99 a month via Onstar. Used to be free to use the phone app to do these things. Better yet GM now will collect data from usage and send it to affiliates. Now I know other manufactures charge for navigation and such after a trial period but GM is going to charge just to use a phone app to unlock/lock/start your car. They have plans with data that go up to 60 a month
- organsnyder 8y ago
  Chrysler is the same way (we have a Pacifica PHEV). Our one-year free trial just ended, and there's no way I'm going to spend that much money for such a small amount of convenience.
monkeynotes 8y ago
I'm still unsure how a country could switch from gas to EV. Could a city keep up with the power demands when everyone plugs in their EVs at night? I am assuming we'd have to build more power generation capacity, and what is the source? How do you transmit all the high capacity power to quick charge stations on the highway when you have 200+ cars an hour needing to quick charge? It all sounds like an enormous infrastructure upgrade. Europe is already committing to EV and outlawing gas engines in the next 10-20 years so it will be interesting to learn how they plan to accommodate the huge electricity generation and transmission demands that go with that.

paulmd 8y ago

Pretty easily solved with a $15 carbon monoxide detector. They are required by rental codes around here, and are just a plain good idea. Unlike smoke detectors they rarely fault out due to smoke from toasters/etc.

wycy 8y ago

Lexus is noted in the article as being one of the problematic cars, but mine beeps fairly insistently if you get out of the car with the keys with the ignition still on. I get that people are mentally on autopilot sometimes--I certainly am often--but I feel like what it does already should be enough to snap you out of it. The line has to be drawn somewhere. I think it's unreasonable to count on computers to warn and protect us about every possible mistake people might make.

RankingMember 8y ago
Isn't one of the major benefits of computer automation that such adjustments (e.g. adding a safety feature that uses existing hardware) can be made with little cost/effort? If a few lines of code will save 2 lives a year, is it worth it? I get where you're coming from and you ask a very interesting question: where do we draw the line? I think a good place to draw it is after we've eliminated accidental fatalities.

yial 8y ago

It’s horrible that people have lost their lives... but I don’t see this as an issue with the car. I actually think it calls for having more CO detectors in homes (along with fire alarms ). I have a key less ignition car, and if I leave it running... I want it to stay running. With or without the key. However, the audible alert seems like it would be valuable. What about having the Fob vibrate periodically when outside the car and the car is running ?

schiffern 8y ago

>Toyota models, including Lexus, have figured in almost half of the carbon monoxide fatalities and injuries identified by The Times. Toyota says its keyless ignition system “meets or exceeds all relevant federal safety standards.” That's quite significant, and I wonder why that is? I have a hypothesis: Personally I've had problems with Toyotas (specifically, Prius GenIII and Camry XV50) where trying to shut off the car too fast, eg using "muscle memory," results in the car not shutting off. At first glance (and according to the manual), the steps to shutting off the Prius / Camry appear to be: 1. Shift the car into Park. 2. Press the ignition button. 3. Exit the vehicle. Simple, right? Well, it's not. If you don't wait ~1 second between step 1 and step 2, the car has a race condition where it doesn't realize that you already put it in Park, so it displays a "Shift to Park" message and fails to shut down. To fix, you have to shift the car into Reverse (or really, Anything-But-Park), shift it back into Park, and press the button again. This sequence is extremely confusing, especially if you don't notice the error message. Neither conventional shifters nor conventional key-based ignitions make you wait -- when you put it in gear, it's in gear! Toyota's system has hidden state that's related, but separate from the physical movements of the shift lever and the start button (unlike a conventional key and shifter). So if you want to reliably shut off the car, here are the actual steps to shutting down a Prius / Camry: 1. Shift the car into Park. 2. Wait a beat (for the vehicle to realize it's in Park). 3. Press the ignition button. 4. Exit the vehicle. The proper way for Toyota to do it would have been to buffer the inputs in order, so the same sequence of actions always results in the same result, and the mere act of speeding up one's muscle memory doesn't result in unexpected operation (ie, acting just like the old, more-easily-predictable physical controls).

ataturk 8y ago
BMW: Pull up and park, press stop button. Get out, lock door, and walk away. Easy. The car puts itself into park, etc. The only problem is when I get into other cars that don't do this. I honestly don't like the all-electronic shifters. I feel like the car could end up in state in which shifter inputs get ignored and then I would be unable to shift into neutral or otherwise stop the transfer of power to the wheels. I also happen to think that intelligence agencies know how to assassinate people by taking over their cars and causing runaway conditions that the driver is unable to negate. A mechanical kill switch like on a motorcylce would be a great feature, as long as non-assisted brakes and steering would still function. I know that modern aircraft separate all these linkages electronically now, but I also know that modern aircraft have triple redundancy and that cars don't.