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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 artic

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.

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.