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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 inciden
by 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 agoYou 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 agoYeah, 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.
- mturmon 8y agoWell, in fairness, another big factor in the case of air bags for sure, and seat belts to an extent, is that the auto companies fought them (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10970118 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10970118).
- yock 8y agoIt seems that the humans in this thread are equally bad at it, considering the clamor for government force over an infinitesimally small number of admittedly tragic events.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- ballenf 8y agoBut it's not "stop killing people" vs. "keep killing people". It's is this improvement a higher priority than any of the other changes that would also save lives? The bottom line calculation should be total $ / death prevented. And then compare that to any of the myriad other changes or improvements possible. Like the early warning crash systems (more expensive, but probably more lives saved). Or more airbags. Or backup cameras (to prevent people getting run over). Or drowsy/alertness sensors. Or more $$ for self-driving tech that could take over if a driver becomes incapacitated (long shot and long-term but huge payoff). One other point on the auto-shutoff is that this could lead to the deaths of children in overheated cars where the parents had no clue the car would turn off by itself. The car should either turn off immediately or not at all, imo. Finally, why not install CO detectors on the cars and shutoff the car then? It couldn't be too sensitive, but surely could tell the difference between an enclosed space and bumper-to-bumper traffic.
- chrismcb 8y agoStopping the engine when one exits the car is NOT consistent with the old physical key behavior. One had to actually turn the car off. I'm not sure how that is different today. Before you removed the key, nor you press a button. But you still had to take an action. It wasn't automatic
- ghaff 8y agoMaybe it’s just because I’m used to physical keys but the reflex seems different. I’ve caught myself forgetting to turn off rentals that don’t have a physical key. But I’m open to chalking it up to different habits.
- eertami 8y agoBy forget you mean you opened the door and instantly realised your mistake because of the alarm it triggered?
- ghaff 8y agoI’m not sure that’s universal behavior. It’s not my recollection and I’ve seen material online suggesting only some cars do this.
- ddnb 8y agoWait, you can't open your door with keyless cars? What about in winter when your car is running to heat up and you get out to clear your windscreen?
- throwawayts 8y agoYeah you can, but while the door is open, the car will (in my experience with 4 different brands of keyless cars in Europe) sound an alarm to remind you it is still running. I think this is a good thing.
- 0xfeba 8y agoYou can, it just emits a loud tone.
- mseebach 8y ago> the multitude of easily avoidable deaths that lie entirely on the auto manufacturer's shoulders Ah, but that's not quite how it works, either. There is a certain, small risk involved with being in the world, we can't offload responsibility for any small accident on to the shoulders of manufacturers. Yes, if you can show negligence, there's a case to be made, but you can't.
- pmoriarty 8y agoThe sentence following the one you quote says: "Dozens of others have been injured, some left with brain damage." So deaths are not the whole story. While one is certainly far more likely to die in a automobile collision, of heart disease, or cancer, I don't think it helps anyone to ignore the risks of carbon monoxide poisoning. Incidentally, other sources of carbon monoxide can also exist in the home, so it's a good idea to have a carbon monoxide detector there. Perhaps cars too can be outfitted with them.
- chemmail 8y agoUnfortunately this will have to entries into the Darwin awards. If you are careless enough not to double check, there are consequences. I drive an electric car, so this will never happen, I however always make sure everything is locked, all lights are off, and plugin every night.
- oldcynic 8y agoNice to be so perfect (or is it overchecking via OCD?) to never have forgotten your keys/specs/coat, ever left a light on or been distracted by an interruption.
- awat 8y agoJust like OPSec it’s only perfect until it isn't.
- sjcsjc 8y agoPerhaps I'm being oversensitive, but this seems a vile comment.
- otherme33 8y agoThe Darwin award implies people "eliminate themselves in an extraordinarily idiotic manner". I don't think that doing what you were doing for years without any danger is now considered idiocy. It's like in 40 years a toaster or an oven keeps running if you don't disable it through your "home controlling mental device" and burn your house to the ground while you are sleeping. Oh, and you cannot opt-out of the "mental device", you have to use it like it or not. Old people have the mental muscle to think "I have the car keys with me, therefore the engine is off" built after decades. It's a serious design flaw to not offer at least an opt-out for these people (like key not IN the car, engine shuts off).
- justin66 8y ago> On average, that's two deaths a year in a country of more than 260 million passenger vehicles.[1] These accidental deaths are tragic, but it's actually impressive how infrequently they occur. The deaths and injuries are utterly avoidable with decent design. Also, this is a feature that isn't prominent yet. The number of deaths is only going to get higher until the cars are built to turn the engine off under the right conditions.
- rpcope1 8y ago> The number of deaths is only going to get higher until the cars are built to turn the engine off under the right conditions. I assume implicit to this statement, is that some heuristic algorithm needs to be created to turn the car off. This seems like a grossly over-complicated (and failure prone) solution in comparison to just using a key for the ignition instead. If you can do something easily with a strictly mechanical simple solution, why reinvent the wheel?
- justin66 8y ago> I assume implicit to this statement, is that some heuristic algorithm needs to be created to turn the car off. If you say so. I'm pretty sure just turning the car off if there's nobody sitting in any of the seats and the key is not in the car would be a good start.
- dredmorbius 8y agoNot all 260 million vehicles are keyless. The incident rate per keyless vehicle is likely an order, possibly two, of magnitude higher.
- Retric 8y agoKeyless cars are a tiny fraction of overall vehicles. The net befit is also minimal, so if they became popular you would expect a ~hundred deaths per year for what? Do save 20$ per car because they lack CO detectors?
- hedora 8y agoCO detectors would make sense (as long as they don’t false-positive on the road, which is also dangerous!) I suspect keyless entry systems have prevented multiple deaths of children in parking lots, but there’s no way to track that.
- MBCook 8y agoIt would be easy enough to only use the CO detector when the car is in park or the emergency brake is on. That way it could never activate while driving.
- x0x0 8y agoOr just turn the car off after eg 20-30 minutes of idling?
- Cthulhu_ 8y agoFor modern cars, I think that's what's happening actually - engines will power off when stationary and not in gear, but the car is still on and the engine will restart when it's running low on battery power. Thus, people leaving their car in the garage thinking it's off.
- tolien 8y agoIf the engine’s off because of stop/start the warning noise should already be much louder and accompanied by dashboard warnings. See also what happens when you leave the lights on. That’s what doesn’t make a lot of sense here before we dash off to design some sort of countermeasure - there’s either an engine running (and “modern” engines aren’t that quiet, especially in a confined space), or there should be some loud visual/auditory warning. I guess it’s possible the victims didn’t hear either?
- mathattack 8y agoYes - especially considering over 15,000 times that died in crashes.
- intopieces 8y agoThe ratio to study is not how many deaths per vehicles, but cost-of-implemenation per vehicle vs deaths. The article mentions that the feature can be implemented "for pennies per vehicle." If you could save 1 person's father for $.01 per car, why not?
- IshKebab 8y agoYou could surely prevent this purely in software. The car knows that is hasn't moved, nobody is sitting in the driver's seat and nobody has touched any controls for 10 minutes. Surely it can switch itself off?
- kss238 8y agoSo what happens in winter when I go turn my car on thirty minutes before I leave to make sure it's nice and warm?
- PhasmaFelis 8y agoCould be a special switch on the fob for that. Could beep every five minutes to remind you. Lots of ways to handle it that would save lives at the cost of only minimal inconvenience.
- kss238 8y agoHow is beeping every five minutes any different than what cars do currently? Cars with push to start are already required to beep when the key is taken out of the car. If you add a special switch, that increases costs. Why should car buyers bear extra expenses for less than 100 deaths a year? Should we require special bathtub sensors that beep when they detects still water because hundreds of people drown in bathtubs each year?
- PhasmaFelis 8y ago> How is beeping every five minutes any different than what cars do currently? Would've saved this guy's life. That's different. > If you add a special switch, that increases costs. Why should car buyers bear extra expenses for less than 100 deaths a year? How much do you think a switch costs? If you told me that, for less than a dollar, I could save 50 lives, I'd do it in an instant. It's weird to me that you wouldn't.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- tomatotomato37 8y agoSome more math, adding a 1 cent component (not counting one time costs of R&D and tooling) to every new car sold in the u.s. (~17.5 million) would equal out to 175,000; which equates to a spending of $87500 per death prevented, a reasonable amount. On a counterpoint, 15 times more people die from lightning strikes per year than this, so are kinda going after extreme edge cases here