Teens Will Hate Driving with Ford's MyKey

[duzcizgi]

It's a great tech, but is it really the best way of growing up children? I think parents are getting lazier and lazier about their children as everything they use are getting more and more restricting the children of "accidents". How will the children learn to value their lives, if never they felt that chill of "near miss"? And how do you expect them investigate new things, if everything is restricted from the early babyhood till early tweens?
Hey, give the teenagers some space that they can discover, or we'll have just a bunch of morons who wait for some "parent" to tell them what to do in the following decades.

 

[duzcizgi]

I can see the generation of "adults" in the following years without a single scar of a stupidity that they've done during their childhood/teens. Only unsafe thing they can do left is unsafe sex.

 

[evilshuriken]

I can see where they are coming with this, but I do feel this won't be as effective as they are hoping.

When I was 19 I got a job where I got off work at 2am, and home was 40 miles of highway away... so I would drive home at around 120mph on the highway. I got 2 speeding tickets during that time(before even getting on the hwy, so I kept my license ha!).I payed my monthly car payments, maintenance costs... and then speeding tickets. Eventually I grew out of driving that fast, the cost of replacing worn tires and speeding tickets got old. I do think something good came of it though, I lost all fear of driving on the hwy under any conditions(live in California) and I think driving so fast all the time has to make you a bit more alert driver at normal speeds.

So yeah, give kids a chance!

 

[Guest]

5000 teens die in crashes, oh wowies! And how many 20-30 year olds die? How many 30+ year olds die? People die in crashes, there is no way around that. If you made the age resitriction to 20 so no teens could drive, teens would still die from when they are passangers and get blasted in a head on crash.

Its this lack of trust older generations have in the youth that causes the youth to rebel and drive like a mad man anyways.

Think about this. You have two cars, one with this mykey junk and another without it. You only allow your kid to drive the one with restrictions, they drive around and get pissed about what they can't do for a few months. You then need them to go out with the other car to get something, what are they going to do? Everything they can't in the other car! Now they will go flying down a side street at 90mph while blowing your crappy stock speakers.

Let kids go out and do stupid things in cars and get themselves killed. Those are the ones who would of offered little worth to improving our lives with their lack of intelligence.

 

[Guest]

Ok, so at 19 you are pretty much out from under the control of your parents legally. Thus, the my key would not really apply to people in this age group or above unless you are still at home living with you parent(s). In which case, if you are driving something provided to you then be happy with what you get. Otherwise, pony up the funds and monthly fees for insurance and get your own damn car.

Personally, I think all kids under the age of 18 should only be able to get a permit which requires a parent or grandparent to be with. None of this ‘someone over the age of 21’ garbage. Kids are kids and will continue to do stupid things behind the wheel as well as push the use of cell phones and or texting. I see it all the time where people are driving in the bike lane or hitting a curb because they aren’t screwing aro9und with something.

Hey imagine that…. Parents being parents and taking on the responsibility of making sure there kids learn how to drive properly while they are in the car. No more sending them out to be babysat by the rest of society while they are putting the rest of society at risk.

 

[captaincharisma]

it might count for some bad habits while driving but we still need somthing to prevent the darwin award nominees from texting on there cell phones while driving like that 16 year old who died from crashing her parents SUV while trying to text on her phone

 

[amonymous]

[citation][nom]Shadow703793[/nom]Good tech, I admit. BUT, watch this thing get hacked in a few weeks after release. Some teens aren't stupid![/citation]
qft

 

[amonymous]

[citation][nom]amonymous[/nom][/citation]
besides whos parents are going to go out and buy them a brand spanking new car in 2010? i think most teen drivers don't drive new cars anyways and those who do have enough money to afford paying for repairs in an accident. those who cant pay for the bills are those who are driving older cars without this tech.

 

[miltoxbeyond]

One thing this could be useful is to prevent street racing...of course they use usually customized cars so they'd probably find a way around this...

I had a cousin that died at 17 this year because he was racing... so maybe if he couldn't speed he might still be around today.

 

[duzcizgi]

[citation][nom]captaincharisma[/nom]it might count for some bad habits while driving but we still need somthing to prevent the darwin award nominees from texting on there cell phones while driving like that 16 year old who died from crashing her parents SUV while trying to text on her phone[/citation]

Well, *if* you are afraid that your kid will be a Darwin Award Nominee, believe me, whatever precautions you take, he will.

Parents should stop goofing around and start taking care of their own kids. Teach them, be a good example and role model for them. And even after this, if the kid's acting stupid, well MyKey won't help her/him.

 

[Kami3k]

Your cousin deserved to die, the human race is suffering from the most deadly epidemic of them all, stupidity. Another idiot dying is good for the race as a whole. Most of the world's problems is caused by stupidity.

 

[Guest]

One word: JourneySafe
visit: www.journeysafe.com
View the statistics about the 5,000 teens killed in car crashes every year.
Learn that distraction, inexperience behind the wheel and SPEED are the leading causes of teen crashes.
Also, learn that over 70% of crashes have nothing to do with DUI and in over 65% of the crashes it's the PASSENGER who is killed not the driver. So while you're worried about taking away teenager's ability to learn by doing, you ought to be more worried about your teen being in a car driven by another teen--with or without "MyKey."
Driving is NOT second nature to newly licensed drivers. They need to gain experience. Having the graduated driver license in California helps. Making cell phone/texting illegal for 16-18 year olds helps. Giving parents a MyKey type system helps. It helps buy the teen time to even get experience driving and hopefully save their life or that of their friend who they're carting around town.

 

[mlopinto2k1]

Ya know, I wonder how many of these crashes happen below 80mph. I bet atleast 50% of them. Screw it, its the kids fault if he doesn't respect and learn the power of 2500lbs traveling at 60+mph. Its a damn weapon. I could go on and on and elaborate on every comment thrown at that. The fact of the matter is its true. Maybe Ford should make it even more strict. "This vehicle in safe mode isn't designed to travel on a Freeway, Thruway or Interstate". Hah!

 

[v12v12]

Bah... Sounds like a good intent idea towards limiting speeding, BUT I didn't see ANYONE mention the fact that these ridiculous "innovative" ideas are costing ALL of us a TON! Keys like these and the like cost a FORTUNE to get copies made. And only a dealership can! I know friends with VWs that have $200 key fobs b/c of some alarm/sensor crap built in... lose your keys and lose $200+?! Screw that... it's just another dealer markup added to the already over-inflated sticker of cars of today. They'll get you for whatever we're all dumb enough to keep paying for. Why should anyone have to pay more than $10-15 to get set of copies? What if you lose your keys, or they get stolen etc... $$$ Vs a regular key that costs $2/copy. The thieves of today are namely people that WORK in the business and have all the tools necessary to deactivate/clone any stupid sensor-chip blah blah. Ask any repo-man, bodyshop, decent mechanic... they can get into your car easier with a decoder than a dang slim-jim. It's all about control. /rant over.

 

[TwoDigital]

How about "you can only go 80 for 5 seconds" and then the limiter goes back down to 70... if the legal speed limit is only 70, I don't see why some teens would need to exceed that by 10mph for something like "accident avoidance" as the author puts it. Or perhaps just let the parent select the top speed.

In any case, when we get to the point, as many comments above have stated, where teens can just hack it "a few weeks" after they get it... I guess I have done my due diligence to get them to be better drivers. At least it's an attempt by parents and auto makers to try and curb some bad habits at a young age... kind of like trying to stop your kids from drinking or buying a fake ID... you can try and intervene but in the end they're going to do what they think they need to do.

 

[duzcizgi]

@TwoDigital: If you want to curb bad habits from children, it's not the correct way to put limits involuntarily. Anything involuntary will go away as soon as the limiter is lifted.

Why not just trying to teach them what's proper and what's unproper? I know it's the hard way. Easier to rely on technology and regulations. I've seen toys with their battery compartments are screwed so that children cannot open it by themselves and have to bring it onto their parents for a battery change. Hey! Why not just a little trust those young guys? It isn't default that they'll always behave stupid. If they want behave stupid, they'll do so. If not at 16, then at 22.