Ford recently announced an upcoming feature which will allow owners to program one of the car's keys to cause the car to behave in extra-safe ways, such as limiting top speed and stereo volume, using more persistent/annoying reminders to buckle seatbelts, and earlier warning of low fuel. The intention is that parents give these programmed keys to their kids to keep them in check - kind of like giving the valet parker a key that doesn't open the glovebox. And despite feeling a bit restrictive (and surely incurring the resentment of the offspring involved), it actually seems pretty useful - building these features into the guts of the car itself, rather than tacking them on as after-market add-ons, means they'll be much tougher to disable. The specific features all seem reasonable and well thought out as well - seatbelts, speed, stereo, and gas would be the first things I'd think of for safe and responsible driving. Now, will they build in a feature that shuts down the engine at curfew? Or maybe it's too "Cinderella" to have a Ford Focus turn into a pumpkin at midnight...[via Autoblog and Engadget]
I think the best feature here is the ability to mute the stereo until the seat belts have been fastened.
ReplyDeleteBetter yet, have a cell signal inhibitor in place until the seat belts are fastened.
Yep, hit'em where it hurts - right in the tunage! :-)
ReplyDeleteHow many car company have this safety feature
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