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Comment by pmoriarty | Hacker News Reader

The 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.

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You make a reasonable point, and I don't mean to trivialize a serious issue -- carbon monoxide poisoning caused by keyless cars -- but in comparison, bathtub drownings are far more common: about 335 a year.[1]

[1] https://www.seattlepi.com/national/article/Someone-drowns-in...

Ah but what's the ownership rate of bathtubs compared to keyless start cars?

You’d also have to consider bathtub usage (I shower daily, but only take a bath every couple of months)

Yeah, but the anti skid pad in my bathtub (which might prevent drownings) is slippery when damp, so I fell in the bath while taking a shower, and could have been killed.

I guess that sort of death goes under the “drowning” category, since the bath mitigation can kill shower-takers.

> I guess that sort of death goes under the “drowning” category

How could it be? Do you plug your drain when you shower? Are the investigators in your area too lazy to find head trauma?

In my shower/tub combo, I sometimes accidentally plug the drain by bumping the attached drain cover with my foot, causing it to slightly turn and fall into place. This could easily happen if I fell.

Sometimes I have a slow drain and I don't fix the until it becomes slow enough to fill up substantially during my shower. If I were unconscious in the sub with the shower running, it could have enough time to fill up. This would be especially true if my fall caused the water to switch to tub mode, which sends a lot more water into the tub.

I had a friend in college who liked to take showers while pass-out drunk. He flooded the adjoining rooms several times when his unconscious body blocked the drain. Luckily this shower was not a tub or he may not have survived these incidents.

That was very informative, decent reasons not to let your drain maintenance get out of hand, or leave the stopper next to the drain.

> I had a friend in college who liked to take showers while pass-out drunk. He flooded the adjoining rooms several times when his unconscious body blocked the drain. Luckily this shower was not a tub or he may not have survived these incidents.

Jesus Christ, I wouldn't know about college, but that seem crazy. I hope your friend got the help he needed.

if after falling the shower head is aimed towards your face you can probably drown. The fall only knocked you out, the water caused death.

I wonder if there is a forensic term for a "one-two punch" of this sort.

If you're considering bathtub usage, you'd also have to consider how many people park their cars in enclosed garages and how many of these cars lack safety features to prevent you from leaving it on.

Ok, but what’s the ‘deep enough water to drown in’ usage rate of bathtubs compared to usage of keyless entry cars by their owners? These days bathtubs seem to be inconvenient showers...

Unfortunately 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.

The 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).

I'm surprised this is even allowed, in the UK it is illegal to leave a car unoccupied on a public road with the engine running. Obviously we're talking about private garages in this case, but the technical ability to have the car running with nobody in it seems to run counter to the spirit of the law.

Where I live, the temperature regularly goes well below 0F every winter. If I start my car and get into it right away, it will be at least 10 minutes before it becomes noticeably warmer.

In colder climates (e.g., further North in this State), people may leave diesel vehicles idling for hours while at work, etc., because it can be so difficult to restart them outdoors in the cold.

There's a reason people start their cars and leave them running for a while.

As far as I'm aware, cars are modified for the UK market and they're not allowed to do this - I think normally a start/stop button is added and an alarm goes off if you get out of the car with it running.

Do you feel the same about speed limits, or minimum following distance? Because cars could enforce those now.

Nice 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.

Just like OPSec it’s only perfect until it isn't.

Perhaps I'm being oversensitive, but this seems a vile comment.

A friend of mine owns a Tesla but on more than one occasion has left the engine running when he has borrowed his partner's car or had a hire car. It's amazing how quickly one gets out of the habit.

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