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Comment by romwell | Hacker News Reader

You 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).

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Stopping 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

Maybe 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.

By forget you mean you opened the door and instantly realised your mistake because of the alarm it triggered?

I’m not sure that’s universal behavior. It’s not my recollection and I’ve seen material online suggesting only some cars do this.

Wait, 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?

You can, it just emits a loud tone.

>Stopping the engine when one exits the car is NOT consistent ...

Attention to details: stopping the engine when one exits the car with the fob is consistent with what happens when you exit the car with the key you used to start it.

Before, you had to remove the key.

Now, you have to remove the keyfob and press the off button.

That is not consistent.

But 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.

> 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.

> ...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.

Yeah, 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.

Well, 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).

It 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.

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