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Its interesting how much attention the general public has given to this yet for only a handful of deaths. For some perspective, 34,000 people died in the US du

Its interesting how much attention the general public has given to this yet for only a handful of deaths. For some perspective, 34,000 people died in the US during 2012 due to motor vehicles[1]. The big automakers are ultimately causing way more deaths by not adopting autonomous vehicle technology sooner if you ask me. And they will continue to do so because they realize that autonomous fleets make more sense than every consumer buying a car or two hence autonomous cars mean their business is in jeopardy/going to shrink. We might also look into deaths associated with air quality/pollution and the number of deaths resulting from it. Its always going to be hard to pin down what number of deaths correlates to how many cars driving some number of miles, but I would put serious money on lower emission vehicles significantly reducing deaths resulting from air pollution. Detroit's reluctance to adopt cleaner technology and its obvious love affair with oil is killing many more than their incompetent switch DREs. Ultimately, even the switch design is a similar phenomena. While many automakers started to get away from keyed ignition switches altogether, GM has continued to use a super cheap part that's obviously a design from the past. You can't tell me the radio on my grandmothers key ring cost versus their switch is worth 13 lives. Certainly, don't mean to trivialize those that have been killed by this, just want to point out that Detroit is so slow to change that ultimately its costing us way more lives than just those killed by this switch problem. 1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in_U.S._by_year http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in...

chris_wot 12y ago
I disagree. This is particularly interesting because there was an active coverup of the issue. This could have been resolved with almost NO deaths, had the actions of this one engineer not been taken.
- dmritard96 12y ago
  I don't mean to troll. I agree its interesting because there is a cover up and an engineer who could have saved 13 lives and didn't. My main point is that big automakers are doing this same think, cover up and all on a grand scale but because you have to look at it from 10,000 feet to see it, it doesn't get the same type of criticism. you said you disagree, there were like six points I tried to make, was there a particular set you disagreed with?
  - chris_wot 12y ago
    I never considered your post a troll, I merely disagree with the general premise that I took from your post that this issue is less important than tardy development of autonomous vehicle and emissions controls technology. Those are important, but not quite as immediate as this matter, is really the issue I had. But you are quite right, those are still important issues. (shame on those who voted you down, IMO you made a good point but dialogue would be more appreciated than random clicking on a down vote).
worklogin 12y ago
I will challenge you on one point: Keyless ignitions are kind of cool (I own a vehicle with one), but the mechanisms of enabling the two stages of aux power before "engine on" are cumbersome. The behavior of the button changes with whether you're in N or D, in addition to whether your foot is on the pedal or not. Knowing what state the vehicle will be in with a keyed ignition is much easier. Source: mid-twenties engineer. I can't imagine how grandma must feel trying to fiddle with 'radio on, windows rolling, engine off'.
- dmritard96 12y ago
  thats an interesting thought. My grandmother hasn't had issues lol but more relevantly, I think you are talking about the fact that without aux, power steering, power brakes, airbags, etc. won't work? I can kinda see that, but seems like there are other solutions to that. Say I was driving down the road at 40, and my ignition indicated that the car was to be turned off, you would think some little state machine (or even stateless) would say, oh hey, we are actually moving....maybe don't turn of aux power?

chris_wot 12y ago

I disagree. This is particularly interesting because there was an active coverup of the issue. This could have been resolved with almost NO deaths, had the actions of this one engineer not been taken.

dmritard96 12y ago
I don't mean to troll. I agree its interesting because there is a cover up and an engineer who could have saved 13 lives and didn't. My main point is that big automakers are doing this same think, cover up and all on a grand scale but because you have to look at it from 10,000 feet to see it, it doesn't get the same type of criticism. you said you disagree, there were like six points I tried to make, was there a particular set you disagreed with?
- chris_wot 12y ago
  I never considered your post a troll, I merely disagree with the general premise that I took from your post that this issue is less important than tardy development of autonomous vehicle and emissions controls technology. Those are important, but not quite as immediate as this matter, is really the issue I had. But you are quite right, those are still important issues. (shame on those who voted you down, IMO you made a good point but dialogue would be more appreciated than random clicking on a down vote).

worklogin 12y ago

I will challenge you on one point: Keyless ignitions are kind of cool (I own a vehicle with one), but the mechanisms of enabling the two stages of aux power before "engine on" are cumbersome. The behavior of the button changes with whether you're in N or D, in addition to whether your foot is on the pedal or not. Knowing what state the vehicle will be in with a keyed ignition is much easier. Source: mid-twenties engineer. I can't imagine how grandma must feel trying to fiddle with 'radio on, windows rolling, engine off'.

dmritard96 12y ago
thats an interesting thought. My grandmother hasn't had issues lol but more relevantly, I think you are talking about the fact that without aux, power steering, power brakes, airbags, etc. won't work? I can kinda see that, but seems like there are other solutions to that. Say I was driving down the road at 40, and my ignition indicated that the car was to be turned off, you would think some little state machine (or even stateless) would say, oh hey, we are actually moving....maybe don't turn of aux power?