
Keyless Cars and Their Carbon Monoxide Toll - helloworld
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/13/business/deadly-convenience-keyless-cars-and-their-carbon-monoxide-toll.html
======
hangonhn
I had a pretty scary run in with CO from my car once and it had nothing to do
with the keyless fob. My car with gasoline direct injection had two bad
injectors fail while I was driving home. It went into limp mode. When I got
home I inserted the OBD2 scanner to diagnose the issue in the garage. Because
it was in limp mode, the engine was running rich and I guess producing a lot
of CO in my garage. In the roughly 5 minutes it took me to start the car, get
the code, and shut it off, it had produced a dangerous level of CO. I left the
garage and went inside. About 30 minutes later while I was in bed my Nest
smoke/CO detectors alerted me to CO in the hallway connecting my house to the
garage. I ventilated the entire house and garage and the alarm stopped. I did
get a light headache from the short exposure.

Moral of the story, never run a car inside the garage with the door closed and
always have CO detectors throughout the house. Nest probably saved my life
that night from my own mistake.

If we want a more general solution, we should look beyond the keyless fob and
just make CO detectors a requirement. You don’t need fancy ones like Nest.
Cheaper ones that cost 20 dollars still works.

~~~
jessaustin
Attached garages are really a terrible misfeature, which will be emblematic
for future generations (as they already are for those overseas) of our poor
taste and judgement. No matter how ugly the house, it would be a lot more
pleasant without the garage. In addition to the dangers cited here, garages
make houses less effective at their primary purposes: controlling the movement
of air, moisture, and heat. The garage door itself is a big part of that,
since every time it opens and closes it opens the house completely to the
outdoors. Automobiles bring moisture, dirt, heat, and noxious chemicals into
the garage and thence into the house. I've never rented a house and been sorry
there was no attached garage. If I ever build my own house it won't have one
either.

~~~
throwaway5752
I completely disagree with you. It's an enormous convenience in poor weather,
with very minor risks that are easily mitigated (I can't believe there is
anyone that doesn't have a CO detector and smoke detector at least on every
floor, it should be illegal not to have them) and they can be very easily
insulated. I have had both and I'd never have a place without a garage or
carport.

~~~
x0x0
This forum has a lot of Californians, who either never have or at least no
longer regularly feel 30F. Let alone -20F.

Also, as of 2011-ish, CO detectors are required by law in CA if you have an
attached garage, a fireplace, or gas heat.

~~~
throwaway5752
I'd also trade it for open space on my lot (since usually the attached garage
has less driveway & structure footprint). But your point is well taken.

------
helloworld
This is certainly an interesting case study in the pitfalls of behavioral
design, but one important detail that the story glosses over is how rare these
incidents are:

 _More than two dozen people [have been] killed by carbon monoxide nationwide
since 2006 after a keyless-ignition vehicle was inadvertently left running in
a garage._

On average, that's two deaths a year in a country of more than 260 million
passenger vehicles.[1] These accidental deaths are tragic, but it's actually
impressive how infrequently they occur.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passenger_vehicles_in_the_Unit...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passenger_vehicles_in_the_United_States)

~~~
romwell
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).

~~~
chrismcb
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

~~~
ghaff
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.

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

~~~
ddnb
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?

~~~
0xfeba
You can, it just emits a loud tone.

------
schiffern
>Toyota models, including Lexus, have figured in almost half of the carbon
monoxide fatalities and injuries identified by The Times. Toyota says its
keyless ignition system “meets or exceeds all relevant federal safety
standards.”

That's quite significant, and I wonder why that is?

I have a hypothesis:

Personally I've had problems with Toyotas (specifically, Prius GenIII and
Camry XV50) where trying to shut off the car _too fast_ , eg using "muscle
memory," results in the car not shutting off.

At first glance (and according to the manual), the steps to shutting off the
Prius / Camry _appear_ to be:

1\. Shift the car into Park.

2\. Press the ignition button.

3\. Exit the vehicle.

Simple, right?

Well, it's not. If you don't _wait ~1 second_ between step 1 and step 2, the
car has a race condition where it doesn't realize that you already put it in
Park, so it displays a "Shift to Park" message and fails to shut down. To fix,
you have to shift the car into Reverse (or really, Anything-But-Park), shift
it _back_ into Park, and press the button again.

This sequence is extremely confusing, especially if you don't notice the error
message. Neither conventional shifters nor conventional key-based ignitions
make you wait -- when you put it in gear, it's in gear!

Toyota's system has _hidden state_ that's related, but separate from the
physical movements of the shift lever and the start button (unlike a
conventional key and shifter).

So if you want to reliably shut off the car, here are the _actual_ steps to
shutting down a Prius / Camry:

1\. Shift the car into Park.

2\. Wait a beat (for the vehicle to realize it's in Park).

3\. Press the ignition button.

4\. Exit the vehicle.

The proper way for Toyota to do it would have been to buffer the inputs in
order, so the same sequence of actions always results in the same result, and
the mere act of speeding up one's muscle memory doesn't result in unexpected
operation (ie, acting just like the old, more-easily-predictable physical
controls).

~~~
mrguyorama
Are you saying it's impossible to shut off the car while not in park? I find
that odd, and will certainly have to try it on my mother's Toyota when I get
the chance

~~~
schiffern
>Are you saying it's impossible to shut off the car while not in park?

Yes! The vehicle faithfully ignores you when you press the Start button, beeps
softly, and displays a message: "SHIFT TO P POSITION."[2]

As I said, in my experience there's a ~1s delay between shifting to Park and
being permitted to turn the car off. You get the same error message, but it's
already in Park. The result? Performing the same sequence of actions at a
different speed results in a _very_ different outcome. And the Park button
(yes I know) is very close to the Start button, so it's easy to perform the
two actions in quick succession. Classic race condition.

Btw, you can't just press Start again. Even though it's now "in Park." It's in
some strange, poorly defined, in-between state, not Park but not Not-Park. To
recover, you have to press the Park button again, _and then_ press the Start
button again. From a software perspective, this makes me uneasy.

It would be easy to miss such the subtle cues indicating an error (soft
beep/message/IC doesn't down). Especially for older people who are hard of
hearing, and just pulled into the garage from a sunny drive (bright pupil
adaptation takes longer to dilate for older people).

From the Prius GenIII manual[1], pp549

> * Stopping the hybrid system

>Set the parking brake, shift the shift position to P and press the “POWER”
switch as you normally do when stopping the hybrid system.

Setting the parking brake is optional, but shifting to Park is not.

There's also a confusing chart with all the warning messages that _should_
explain this behavior, but doesn't. It's on pp525, and it seems to have
evidence of incomplete revision:

>The driver’s door has been opened with the shift position in a position other
than P and _without first turning the “POWER” switch is OFF._

There is no power switch, just a button, and the grammar is wrong. Hmmm...

Curiouser and curiouser.

[1] [https://priuschat.com/threads/2012-2015-prius-owners-
manual-...](https://priuschat.com/threads/2012-2015-prius-owners-manual-
combined-pdf.149300/)

[2] Btw, googling for "shift to P position" indicates that both Hyundai and
Kia have this interlock. Whether they're subject to the same race condition is
unknown.

~~~
mrguyorama
Is this possibly a Prius only flaw?

------
rdiddly
35,000 people are being killed in the US every year by cars, but _now_
suddenly it's "Deadly Convenience," now that 2 people a year are dying from CO
poisoning?

~~~
clairity
any time human lives are involved it's worth moderating one's outrage at such
distortions, but the point you make is worthy of consideration: the number of
deaths per year (21 in some unspecified time period is quoted in the article)
seems to be relatively small compared to other addressable hazards.

the number of deaths and injuries per year from carbon monoxide poisoning by
car is roughly on par with lightning strikes. we address that particular
danger with a relatively straightforward technology, the lightning rod.

so i'd expect the response here would be of similar magnitude (rather than
some convoluted rube goldbergian contraption). the auto-shutoff mechanism
seems to fit the bill and some cars are already fitted with it.

so all in all, it's worth being aware of this danger and the solution, but not
worth spending much more time thinking about it. it's much more fruitful to
focus on reducing one's heart disease vectors, cancer risks and distracted
driving.

~~~
dmurray
If lightning strikes would really only kill two people a year and not cause
property damage, we should not be adding lightning rods to buildings. That's
probably fewer than the number of people who die while fitting lightning rods.

~~~
InitialLastName
This. LIghtning rods are a very cheap insurance policy against the enormous
property damage that lightning does to your building (think fire + widespread
electrical damage).

------
205guy
Another issue negated by electric cars. No burning fossil fuels, no carbon
monoxide in my garage.

Ironic that the only mention of EVs in this thread was about how Teslas turn
themselves off and lock automatically. It's like everyone is complaining about
having to do wiring at colos and some techs getting accidentally electrocuted,
while I spin up another instance on AWS.

BTW, my two Nissan Leaf EVs have the a keyless fob thing, and like the ICE
cars, they beep if you leave with the car on. It seems like manufacturers just
can't come up with a sensible and intuitive way for the keyless fob and car
state to interact. Maybe the idea of putting a physical key into the ignition
was a better paradigm.

~~~
monkeynotes
I'm still unsure how a country could switch from gas to EV. Could a city keep
up with the power demands when everyone plugs in their EVs at night? I am
assuming we'd have to build more power generation capacity, and what is the
source? How do you transmit all the high capacity power to quick charge
stations on the highway when you have 200+ cars an hour needing to quick
charge?

It all sounds like an enormous infrastructure upgrade. Europe is already
committing to EV and outlawing gas engines in the next 10-20 years so it will
be interesting to learn how they plan to accommodate the huge electricity
generation and transmission demands that go with that.

~~~
3pt14159
Ironically it is going to be easiest for places with the cleanest power
(hydro, nuclear, geothermal, wind) because clean power tends to be non-
burstable while fossil fuels are.

So in places like France or Ontario what will happen is that the cars will
automatically charge when rates are low (at night) and may even help the grid
by acting as remote batteries. For example, you could keep your car at a 70%
minimum charge as a configuration then allow the power grid to pull from you
as needed. This would passively reduce your overall power bill as you're
selling at peak demand and buying at peak supply.

~~~
y4mi
while also depleting the battery's lifespan.

sounds like a perfect opportunity to get careless car owners to destroy their
own property for a company's revenue.

especially hilarious if the car owner doesn't use an expensive UPS between the
grid and the car. I'm sure the next lightning storm isn't too far off - and
some of the plugged in cars won't survive it.

I'm not against EV though. There'll however be a lot of growing pains as they
take over the cities. (though thats still far off)

~~~
3pt14159
This can be modelled with net present value accounting. If, at scale, it is
financially worth it for Tesla to manufacture giant batteries for the electric
grid then it will also be financially viable for the electric grid to use
spare battery capacity.

------
lordnacho
Is it not normal for a keyless car to beep like crazy when you leave the car
with the key inside?

My car does this. As soon as it detects the key is not inside the car it will
beep and remind you the car is on. The other problem this solves is that you
don't want to be driving somewhere without the key either, eg when you're
dropping off your wife and she happens to have the key.

~~~
Cthulhu_
Same, and exactly; the car should just shut down when it detects the key is
not inside the car. Could someone just get in and drive off?

I'm fairly sure this might be true for older models though.

~~~
aequitas
The keyless car I owned would warn and beep like crazy about the key missing,
but it would continue driving. Then when coming to a halt and shifting into
neutral/park it would deny switching back to drive. So no danger while driving
and no risk for stealing.

~~~
artmageddon
My Honda CR-V will periodically beep with "NO KEY" lighting on up on the
dashboard(say I give my wife the key to get inside our home on a crappy day
while I go park the car elsewhere), but doesn't make impose any restrictions
on using the car while it's on, regardless of your current speed or gear. Once
you shut the car off though, that's it.

------
karl11
I would bet that collectively the time wasted due to mishaps exceeds time
saved by this feature. For me personally, I don’t think I will ever make the
time up in my lifetime - I have accidentally killed a battery once because the
car was in ACC mode and I didn’t realize it, and another time I drove away
without the key because I was dropping the owner of the car off at the
airport.

~~~
hndamien
These problems are not as bad with an electric car like a Tesla. I have left
AC on but the battery was fine. I have been dropped off while the driver had
no key, and it posed a slight issue once they stopped the car and got off the
seat. Obviously, no CO poisoning.

------
lholden
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
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.

------
kemitche
I wonder if these vehicles wouldn't benefit from an onboard CO detector?
Automatic shutoff if the vehicle is stationary and CO hits a given threshold.

There's indubitably a bunch of reasons not to do it that way...

~~~
joshvm
On a side note, it's a legal requirement in some countries to having a working
CO detector in the home, certainly for rented properties in the UK. Also in
some (30+) states by the looks of it [1]. A $10 detector would have probably
saved the gentleman's life.

[1]
[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221133551...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211335517300013)

~~~
schiffern
>A $10 detector would have probably saved the gentleman's life.

True, but making the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards requiring the $5
sensor in that $10 detector in every vehicle equipped with keyless start (or
perhaps, every vehicle) would lead to nearly 100% deployment as the vehicle
fleet is replaced.

By comparison, despite decades of passing laws and funding public education
campaigns, only 33% of households ("occupied units") having a working CO
detectors[1], and 40% of "working" detectors failed to alarm in hazardous
levels[2]. So overall, just 20% of households have adequate CO protection.

FTA:

> From news reports, lawsuits, police and fire records and incidents tracked
> by advocacy groups, The Times has identified 28 deaths and 45 injuries since
> 2006, but the figures could be higher.

Let's estimate they found 1/3 of all cases, for a total of 56 deaths and 135
injuries. Estimating $6m per statistical life and $3m per injury (some
injuries, like brain injuries, can be _more_ than $6m for lifetime medical
care and lost productivity, but this estimate is intentionally conservative).
That's $61.75m annually, compared to the average of 13,532,750 annual vehicles
sold in that time period[3], so about $4.5 of harm reduced per vehicle.

So economically it seems like a wash, and it prevents awful tragedies. Sounds
like a good idea to me.

[1]
[https://www.census.gov/prod/2008pubs/h150-07.pdf](https://www.census.gov/prod/2008pubs/h150-07.pdf),
pp14

[2]
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3222366/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3222366/)

[3] [https://www.statista.com/statistics/199983/us-vehicle-
sales-...](https://www.statista.com/statistics/199983/us-vehicle-sales-
since-1951/)

~~~
tialaramex
Note that the scarily high 40% failure is heavily biased by people keeping
units long past their design lifespan. If you have a 5 year old Carbon
Monoxide detector, buy a new one.

The failures prior to 5 years in that test are disturbing, but they're not
statistically significant on their own so it's hard to be sure how serious
that would be in practice.

------
twblalock
If you're reading this and you don't have carbon monoxide detectors in your
home, please go buy some. They are generally integrated in modern smoke
detectors, and the standalone units are pretty cheap.

I'd recommend having one in the garage if you have a gas water heater. But you
should definitely have them in the house no matter what.

~~~
dpark
> _They are generally integrated in modern smoke detectors_

No they are not. Most smoke detectors do not have carbon monoxide detection
built in. You can buy combination units but you should not assume a smoke
detector has carbon monoxide detection just because it’s new. Verify that the
unit you purchase provides detection of both of you want both in one.

And replace your detectors if they’re 10 years old (or don’t have a date, in
which case they’re way older than 10 years).

------
samcheng
Tesla handles this quite well. You stop driving, then open the door. This puts
the car in park and engages the parking brake. Other stuff happens like the
door handles present and the stereo volume turns down. Then when you close the
door (if nobody is detected in the driver's seat) the car shuts off, much to
the chagrin of any children sitting in the back seat listening to the music.
As you walk away, the car locks automatically.

The car then automatically wakes up as you approach it. Sit in, put on your
seatbelt, and put it into drive to go.

It's certainly VERY easy to leave an internal combustion car running (even a
keyed one) if you are used to that!

~~~
spacenick88
And even then the worst that can happen from leaving an electric car turned on
in your garage is your battery getting drained. Even keeping the lights on
this will likely take days when fully charged.

------
tptacek
I feel like I read sometime last year 'DannyBee saying that modern cars were
efficient enough that it was unlikely they'd be dangerous running in a garage.

Found it:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14705990](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14705990)

~~~
jacquesm
That's a pretty impressive memory feat.

~~~
tptacek
It was a memorable claim!

------
Angostura
Not mentioned in the article, but I imagine that this could be exacerbated by
the fuel-saving 'auto engine off' behaviour of newer cars... you arrive home,
engage the brake and the engine turns off automatically.

... only to automatically restart 15 minutes later when the engine sensors
detect the oil temp is dropping.

~~~
ironash
This happened to me with a hire car. I parked the car and pressed the button
to stop the engine. The engine cut out so I got out of the car, locking the
vehicle with the remote as I walked away. After some time I was contacted by
the security team of the company I was visiting to tell me the engine was
running on my vehicle. The auto engine off had kicked in as i pressed the
engine stop button, but because the engine had stopped I didn't hold the
button for long enough to actually switch the engine off. When I locked the
car the turn indicators flashed with a non-standard pattern to warn that the
lock had failed (because the engine was not off) but because it was a hire car
I did not recognise it. When I drove the car home the same thing happened at
the end of the journey but this time I was expecting it and switched the car
off properly.

~~~
kaybe
It just occurs to me that this is probably only an issue with automatic cars
since any shift car will just have the engine die immediately if you start it
with the shift pedal unpressed.

~~~
Angostura
No. (I drive a manual shift car in the UK). If you stop the car, put it into
neutral and press the foot brake, the engine will stop if conditions are
correct.

~~~
kaybe
I have been taught to always put the first gear in when parking the car,
that's where that idea comes from. If you leave it in neutral, I am indeed
wrong.

------
pg_bot
I'd rather see people install CO detectors within their homes as it is a more
general solution to this problem. CO poisoning can occur with any fuel burning
appliance in your home. It would be better to cover all sources instead of
each one individually.

~~~
TorKlingberg
A lot of homes don't have any fuel burning appliances. It varies between
countries and places.

------
hi41
>a software change that it said could be accomplished for pennies per vehicle.
In the face of auto industry opposition, the agency let the plan languish,
though it says a rule is still under consideration.

Why the car industry would oppose such a minor fix is beyond me. If it does
not even hurt the bottom line, why not make that change.

~~~
emodendroket
I'd think some drivers prefer the current behavior. Like if you don't have a
garage and live somewhere with cold winters you probably want to be able to
start it and walk away.

~~~
oh_sigh
Sure, but 30 mins is more than enough time to warm up in situations where
externally powered heaters aren't required. Surely there must be some safe
ground that would not drastically affect most drivers, but still save lives

~~~
emodendroket
Yeah, that's fair. I drive a manual car, which makes it very hard to absent-
mindedly leave your car running (at least if you park it in gear, but I think
most people do).

------
yial
It’s horrible that people have lost their lives... but I don’t see this as an
issue with the car. I actually think it calls for having more CO detectors in
homes (along with fire alarms ).

I have a key less ignition car, and if I leave it running... I want it to stay
running. With or without the key. However, the audible alert seems like it
would be valuable. What about having the Fob vibrate periodically when outside
the car and the car is running ?

------
tzakrajs
My 2015 Ford automatically shuts off after roughly 15 minutes of being without
the key whether you start it from inside or outside of the vehicle.

~~~
TheForumTroll
That is a good thing since some newer Fords leak CO into the interior. I'm
sure they wouldn't have added it if they could've gotten away with doing
nothing.

~~~
tzakrajs
Thank you for the tip! I am going to do research into my Taurus to see if it
is affected.

------
petermcneeley
Air quality sensors that would detect this any many other potential hazards
would likely cost $5 or less. Even if lawsuits resolve this issue its
interesting to see how its only resolved post harm.

------
lisper
Sounds to me like a big part of the problem is that these cars are too quiet.
(I call that a nice problem to have.)

My car beeps at me pretty loudly when I get out with the engine running.

~~~
mayniac
This was my problem when I rented a keyless car for the first time last year.
To preface, it was a v6 mustang which I wasn't actually _expecting_ to be
quiet, but in comparison to what I'm used to it was practically silent.

Consider that cars have three usual running states: off, electrics on/engine
off, everything on. How do you tell, quickly and conveniently, which state the
car is in? With a key you can reach under the wheel and verify what state the
car's in, in under a second. I haven't seen a keyless car system that was
anywhere near that intuitive. Engine noise is usually the best indicator but
as you've mentioned, cars are quiet now.

With the rental car it took me a good half hour to figure out all the nuances
of the keyless ignition. Compare that to seconds, occasionally minutes, of
getting used to "normal" cars with keys/fobs.

~~~
mritun
> Consider that cars have three usual running states: off, electrics on/engine
> off, everything on. How do you tell, quickly and conveniently, which state
> the car is in?

Glance at the tachometer, if it’s at zero, engine isn’t running.

------
jedberg
> Despite years of deaths, regulatory action has lagged.

In California at least, all new homes and all rentals are required to have CO
detectors. It seems like that would be a good regulation to have nationwide,
which would help with this problem as well as other CO related issues.

------
segmondy
I suspect if they looked at attached garages and their toll when cars are left
running the incident will be higher. How many people have died because of
attached garages? Folks can help mitigate this by having carbon monoxide
detectors in their garage and in the house. Car manufactures tho should have
this built in, if the car is not running and the CO level inside get's too
high, shut it off and sound the car alarm. The only challenge is that CO
sensors seems to need replacing more than the life of the car and of course
the price of car will go up and those without the need will be upset.

~~~
hedora
I wonder how many people died because they locked their keys in a running
vehicle in the garage, called a locksmith, but didn’t think about CO entering
the house while they waited.

At the rate of 2 per 100’s of millions of people per year, these scenarios
become plausible.

------
Animats
Why is the default is to leave the engine running with the fob out of range of
the vehicle? I'd expect that the default would be to turn off the engine. If
you really want to leave the engine running with the vehicle empty, that
should take special action to set up.

Maybe that should only be available with the "remote engine start / preheat /
precool" option, which would include interior and exterior CO detectors.

~~~
JepZ
> I'd expect that the default would be to turn off the engine.

That would be very dangerous. For example, think about the following
scenario:the co-driver has the key within his pocket, he leaves the car and
the driver wants to drive around the corner to find a parking spot. So the
driver accelerates and after a few meters the engine would turn off and his
breaks would be completely manual.

That could cause some serious accidents.

~~~
IshKebab
Brakes usually work fine for 5 minutes after you switch the engine off. At
least they do in my car.

Seems like an easier solution would be to turn off the car if it hasn't moved
for 10 minutes.

------
danepowell
Has anyone compared the rates of carbon monoxide poisoning with and without
keyless ignition? I could actually see an argument for keyless being safer: if
people can leave a car and completely forget to turn it off, they can
certainly do that and forget to take the keys with them. At least with the
keyless ignition you have the _possibility_ of being alerted to your mistake
(my Toyota beeps so loud that it would be pretty much impossible to ignore).

------
peterwwillis
Here's the thing: leaving a car running and unoccupied is, from an engineering
perspective, completely stupid.

Running a car on idle for a long time basically slowly degrades it. It's just
sitting there getting hot and wasting gas. Without adequate cooling, the
engine will overheat. And if you have multiple catalytic converters, the car
can explode from built up gases. Many manuals explicitly state not to idle the
car for more than 10-20 minutes.

You don't even need to idle it. Many cars today have automatic engine shut off
and start when the car is stopped at a red light. New cars could _easily_ add
this to prevent idling.

Now consider the non-technical reasons not to let it idle. One, someone can
steal it. Two, it's wasting gas. Three, it's pumping harmful gases into the
atmosphere and creating smog. Four, someone could die from carbon monoxide.

The solution is simple. The default should be to turn off the car if the keys
are gone after idling for 10 minutes, _with an override switch_ to let it idle
for, let's say an hour. After an hour you have to flip the switch again.

Regardless of whether you think this is necessary, there are hundreds of such
modifications already that add up to make cars safer and more reliable. You
can't switch into or out of park or reverse without depressing the brake. You
can't remove the keys without being in park. Your can't operate Bluetooth
controls while the car is in motion.

So it's not like these changes are new or difficult. Automakers add them over
time as they see the need. But when they don't act, it's up to us to pass
legislation to require them.

~~~
rpcope1
> Running a car on idle for a long time basically slowly degrades it. It's
> just sitting there getting hot and wasting gas. Without adequate cooling,
> the engine will overheat. And if you have multiple catalytic converters, the
> car can explode from built up gases. Many manuals explicitly state not to
> idle the car for more than 10-20 minutes.

Do you have a citation for any of this? I think letting an engine idle for
extended periods of time does run up the hours on the engine (if you've got
the sort of engine where you would even think about adding an hour meter,
anyways), but especially if not under a load, I would very, _very_ surprised
if you incurred actual damage letting the engine just run. The cooling system
on every car I've ever encountered is more the sufficient to keep the engine
at the correct operating temperature indefinitely, even if it's real hot out.

~~~
peterwwillis
A quick Google search has many different sources, none of which are
scientific. One is all the manufacturers that warn against idling, for various
reasons based on the particular model, probably. Two is the increased fuel
mixture in cold weather, leading to increased wear on cylinder walls from
running rich until the engine reaches temp. Three is that cars are designed to
operate under median load, not idle: half of how a car cools its engine is air
passing over radiator plates, and that doesn't happen when the car is stopped.
The engine actually has to work harder to keep the fans going in hopes of
keeping temps down (in hot environments it'll just run hard constantly). And
in winter it's the opposite problem, with oil viscosity and antifreeze working
at potentially the end of their design spec to both keep the engine lubricated
and coolant circulating. If it had load it could keep itself warmer easier,
rather than depend on all these extra factors to keep from damaging the
engine. And all of this for gasoline cars; diesels have a much more difficult
time, especially if they're supposed to be fuel efficient.

Now, obviously I'm not claiming idling your car is going to ruin your engine,
cars idle all the time with no problem. It's just not _at all_ what the car
was designed to do most of the time, and it will cause undue wear in various
conditions over time. At the very least an hour of idle is equivalent to
driving 25 miles (according to Ford Fleet) and your gas mileage will be worse.

------
JepZ
If the key leaves my KIA while the engine is running, an alarm sounds. Works
perfectly well and if you ignore alarms without knowing what they are about...
Well, then no system can help you.

So the real issue here, is that some cars do not seem to have such an alarm
(probably should become mandatory) and that many owners don't know how to
properly use their cars. After all, there is a reason why you need a license
to drive those things.

------
Theodores
This would never happen in the UK or Norway as petrol costs too much and
people just would not have a house big enough that they would not notice an
automobile engine chugging away right next to them.

Cheap petrol in the USA means that people are in the habit of doing things
like starting their car remotely to 'warm up' or 'cool down' before they then
have a shower, brekkie and what not before finally getting in their car.
Usually the car is on the driveway and not the garage in these scenarios,
however, that is something that would not happen in the rest of the world,
where petrol costs real money in part because a U.S. dollar has to be bought
in order to buy the oil that is always priced in petro-dollars.

Given that people do suicide themselves by connecting some hosepipe from the
exhaust to the interior of a car I am actually surprised that there are not
rules regarding CO detectors already. CO can not just kill the occupants, you
could have a big pile-up on a motorway due to CO poisoning. This happened a
few times with police cars last year and 3/4 of all CO deaths are due to
vehicles, not central heating or other sources.

~~~
rascul
> CO can not just kill the occupants, you could have a big pile-up on a
> motorway due to CO poisoning.

Do you have a source for this? I would be interested in reading about it.

~~~
Theodores
There are many stories, Google 'carbon monoxide police ford explorer' to
start. Holes drilled in the vehicle for the flashing lights and other
accessories were given as the cause in those police incidents, of which I
think there were a few.

------
labster
Another problem solved by electric cars. The transition can't come soon
enough.

------
ClassAndBurn
A City Car Share used to park behind my house and I had to call the company a
half dozen times because someone left the keyless hybrid running after they
dropped it off. I had them unlock it so I could turn it just so there wasn't a
running car next to my back yard. This was exasperated by people who weren't
familiar with the car but it was a real enough problem that I knew to listen
for it.

------
emodendroket
I guess one advantage of driving a manual car is you won't make that mistake
after violently stalling your car a few times.

~~~
perl4ever
I learned to drive in a manual transmission truck made in 1987, with a clutch
interlock. But I bought an '87 car with a manual transmission last year, and
to my surprise, it _doesn 't_ have a clutch interlock. So I have inadvertently
started it in gear once or twice.

As it happens, I also have a 2016 car with a manual transmission and it is
keyless - I haven't had any problems with it.

------
forapurpose
I assume people start their cars to warm the cabin. I expect there are much
more efficient ways to warm the cabin than using excess heat from an internal
combustion engine under the hood. Perhaps the solution is to provide a way to
warm the cabin (including seats and steering wheel) very rapidly when the car
starts, or provide a way to warm the cabin without starting the engine.

The latter solution requires an energy source. Perhaps a hybrid car's
batteries are it - not an option until recently, but hybrids are now
relatively common - and the energy could be used efficiently: Ambient air
heaters, of course; plus heaters directly in seats and steering wheel to warm
them more efficiently than the ambient air would; plus of course sensors to
shut down heaters when things are sufficiently warm.

OT: Did the NY Times change their layout recently? For the first time, IMHO,
it's gone from functional to appealing.

~~~
cornellwright
This was one thing I really liked about driving an electric car in the winter
- you can start the heater remotely through the app. Since it's an electric
heater it warms up way faster than ICE. If it's plugged in, it will not even
drain the battery.

~~~
tom_
My old diesel car had an electric heater for the cabin. (The engine just
didn't produce enough waste heat, I assume. In winter, the bonnet would still
be icy after a 20 minute drive.) Such a great feature! The heater didn't start
until the engine was running, or anything clever - it was a late 90s design,
so nothing fancy - but you'd still get noticeably hot air within 2 minutes of
setting off, and, with controls set appropriately, the cabin would become
uncomfortably hot and dry, like a sauna, after about 5 minutes.

I've got a petrol car now, a later model of the same line, and the designers
clearly decided that there was no need for any trickery, and they could just
use the heat from the engine. Big mistake! It's absolutely rubbish by
comparison.

------
wycy
Lexus is noted in the article as being one of the problematic cars, but mine
beeps fairly insistently if you get out of the car with the keys with the
ignition still on. I get that people are mentally on autopilot sometimes--I
certainly am often--but I feel like what it does already should be enough to
snap you out of it.

The line has to be drawn somewhere. I think it's unreasonable to count on
computers to warn and protect us about every possible mistake people might
make.

~~~
RankingMember
Isn't one of the major benefits of computer automation that such adjustments
(e.g. adding a safety feature that uses existing hardware) can be made with
little cost/effort? If a few lines of code will save 2 lives a year, is it
worth it?

I get where you're coming from and you ask a very interesting question: where
do we draw the line? I think a good place to draw it is after we've eliminated
accidental fatalities.

------
hedora
I wonder how many deaths there are per year due to remote start. A kid (or
another key in your pocket) presses one button on the dongle twice, and the
whole household dies.

------
gordon_freeman
Something does not add up in this article unless I am missing something. So
safety features such as alert tone if engine kept on running for some time
might be missed by older people who might have difficulty to hear but I assume
that if a home has a garage to park the car then it should have and usually
has a Carbon Monoxide alarm inside the house as well. Would not it start
making loud alert noise when CO is increased at harmful levels?

~~~
Johnny555
Florida (where at least one of these deaths occurred) only recently began
requiring CO detectors and only for new construction.

 _Requires that every building for which a building permit is issued for new
construction on or after July 1, 2008, and having a fossil-fuel-burning heater
or appliance, a fireplace, or an attached garage shall have an approved
operational carbon monoxide alarm installed within 10 feet of each room used
for sleeping purposes._

[http://www.ncsl.org/research/environment-and-natural-
resourc...](http://www.ncsl.org/research/environment-and-natural-
resources/carbon-monoxide-detectors-state-statutes.aspx)

------
jaggederest
I think this is actually a stronger argument for sealing the garage off from
the house, detached if possible. There are any number of bad things being
stored in many garages that make it useful to seal your garage well away from
the house.

------
paulmd
Pretty easily solved with a $15 carbon monoxide detector. They are required by
rental codes around here, and are just a plain good idea. Unlike smoke
detectors they rarely fault out due to smoke from toasters/etc.

------
jonhendry18
I'd think this would be more common with remote start.

------
abootstrapper
Keyless ignition over complicates the solution to a simple problem. I’ve never
liked them on those grounds alone, and I hadn’t even considered the risks for
injury. Then again I’ve always felt that more bells and whistles on a car are
just more opportunities for breakage and repairs.

~~~
kylec
Most keyless systems have a physical key backup in case stuff fails. So if the
system breaks you're no worse off than a car that has a physical key. Also, in
my experience, keyless systems are pretty reliable, I've never had one fail on
me or anyone in my family.

I also really like the convenience they provide in being able to lock, unlock,
and start my car without needing to take anything out of my pocket. If I can
help it, I'll never buy another car without a keyless system.

------
beamatronic
How do you not know your cars engine is running?

~~~
ascorbic
The victims all seem to be elderly.

------
TelAvivHacker
NY Times loves to run articles on secret dangers of modern conveniences.

------
CharlesMerriam2
Let's talk about real killers, which kill far more.
[https://on.cc.com/1hCMleQ](https://on.cc.com/1hCMleQ). Falling Coconuts kill
dozens of times more people but no one is seriously looking at active
countermeasures.

~~~
mavhc
Not sleeping under coconut trees?

Vehicles kill 3000 people a day, that's before the pollution they cause.

------
spraak
I've certainly often forgotten to turn off the Prii [1] I've used.

[1]
[http://content.usatoday.com/communities/driveon/post/2011/02...](http://content.usatoday.com/communities/driveon/post/2011/02/toyota-
prius-prii-prium-priuses-plural-james-lipton/1)

~~~
dnautics
I've forgotten to leave with the keys, several times. Not so bad at work,
which is in an office lot in suburban sleepytown, but kind of scary when I get
back from paying a social call in a higher-petty-crime area like the Mission
district.

~~~
perl4ever
My car (a Honda) won't lock with the button on the door handle if the key fob
is inside, so I don't forget it.

~~~
dnautics
I don't have a button on my door handle.

------
stmfreak
While tragic, I don't want my government protecting me from myself. I mean,
where does this end? What about leaving the stove on? What about using my
barbecue indoors?

There have been cases where government intervention to help may have actually
been worse than that original problem, such as the rise in cases of forgetting
children in rear seats on warm days after laws were written forbidding car
seats in the front where parents find it harder to forget their child.

