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Car Guy
Ford’s Brave New World
Style, sex appeal, and power used to sell cars. Not anymore.
Yesterday’s tyrannies came to us in the name of the people — or the race or the nation. We may get ours in the name of the children.
At least, when it comes to our cars and what we’re allowed to do with them.
Ford has just revealed a new system it will include as standard equipment on many of its 2010 model vehicles — and eventually, all of them. The new system — called “MyKey” — is described as a tool for parents of teenaged drivers. It lets Mom or Dad electronically limit the vehicle’s speed via a programmable key fob to no more than 80 mph. But that’s not all folks. The system can be set up to trigger an annoying buzzer if the teen doesn’t buckle up for safety — or exceeds any preset speed — and even limits the volume of the stereo (okay, maybe this last item’s not such a bad idea).
“Our message to parents is, hey, we are providing you some conditions to give your new drivers that may allow you to feel a little more comfortable in giving them the car more often,” said Jim Buczkowski, Ford’s director of electronic and electrical systems engineering.
But the speed limiter thing is creepy, because you just know it will not end with “the children.” It may start with them — just as mandatory seat belt laws began with them. But eventually, the same inexorable logic will be applied to everyone.
Who, after all, needs to drive faster than 80 mph? It’s illegal speeding! And speeding, as we all have been taught to pretend to agree, is unsafe. Why, therefore, should the possibility of speeding be permitted when technology can keep us safe?
If Ford does it, bet your bippie GM will, too. Automakers have fully embraced what you might call Mom Culture — each trying to outdo the others as providers of the “safest” cars on the road. Style, sex appeal and power used to sell cars. Not so much today. The most popular cars on the road are S-moo-Vees and family friendly “crossovers” that are just minivans in drag. Most new cars come standard with at least four air bags; some six or even eight. It adds thousands of dollars to the bottom line price, but all those moms out there demand it.
How long before the moms in the state and federal Politburo seize upon this new technology and make it mandatory? Not just that your next new car come equipped with it — but that either the automakers or the government pre-program the car so that it can never be driven faster than the posted limit?
With GPS technology, it is now possible to do this in “real time” — as the car travels. Leaving your driveway/neighborhood, a roadside transmitter sends a signal to your car’s computer, limiting the speed to the 25 mph maximum; once you turn onto the secondary road that leads to the highway — where the limit is 45 mph — the car receives new instructions and allows you to go that fast. But no faster. Enter the highway, and you’re allowed 55. That’s it. Wherever you go — and no matter how much horsepower you’re packing — you’ll go only as fast as The Man (or more accurately, Mom) says you may.
IRONICALLY, THE ONLY HOPE this darkness may not descend is that it would cause a major cash-flow problem for the local and state governments that depend so much on the “revenue” generated from our system of routine non-compliance with purposely under-posted speed limits. We’re talking hundreds of millions of dollars; a bonanza not just for the various governments involved but also for the insurance cartels, who profit handsomely from the almost-unavoidable premium “surcharges” that come with a blotch on your DMV record for “speeding.”
But if speeding becomes impossible, radar traps — both manned and automated — become pointless. No money in it.
And that we cannot have.
So, it’s even money how this will come out. There’s a battle brewing between the safety fetish of millions of moms, the automakers who are desperate to please them — and the edifice of organized highway robbery that makes it possible to keep the money flowing into the government’s pockets from ours without the politically less palatable need to impose an overt tax.
Who will come out the victor? It’s a tough call. But either way, you and I will lose.
About the Author
Eric Peters is an automotive columnist and author of Automotive Atrocities: The Cars You Love to Hate (Motor Books International) and a new book, Road Hogs.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (17) | Leave a comment
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Bob Karafin| 10.27.08 @ 7:46AM
I will not buy any car that has this kind of technology built in; I will go to a foreign automaker first, damn the cost to American workers. If the government makes this kind of technology mandatory, then it's no more new cars for me -- I'll just restore an older one rather than have Big Brother tell me how fast I can drive or how fast I've been driving.
I have a 20 year old son and a 6 year old daughter; of course I'm concerned for their safety whenever they get behind the wheel (or for when that day comes). But watching over their driving habits is MY responsibility, NOT the government's -- and I'll not support any automaker that helps the government stick its nose any further into the tent than it already is!!
Mike| 10.27.08 @ 8:46AM
Aahhhhh. And to think we just sold our 1951 Plymouth...
frost| 10.27.08 @ 8:47AM
We lost two cars because of Hurricane Ike, and just bought an '06 Saab convertible. No regrets.
James McEnanly| 10.27.08 @ 10:39AM
I see another futility coming of this. Many children are more technologically savvy than their parents. They use cell-phones that seem to have been designed by Q. They are going to have to explain to their parents how to program these things.
Raoul Bloodworth| 10.27.08 @ 11:00AM
They will have to pry the keys to my 12 cylinder BMW 850i from my cold dead hands. And as for my Ferrari 308/GT4 I've had it for 30 years. Its a member of the family.
Mike| 10.27.08 @ 11:42AM
Good on Ford. Most of the idiots on the road can't drive safely and purchase cars (or penile compensation units) with way too much power. People today have no regard for the consequences of thier actions on the road today, and if they and the police can't regulate thier behaviour I welcome responsible industry and government to do it for them.
John Giardina| 10.27.08 @ 11:43AM
Ignorance abounds!! There is NO new technology that allows speed limiting of your car. As long as there have been computers controlling fuel delivery, ign timing, etc., the ability to limit the top speed of the car has been there. In fact many vehicles (even ones 15 years old or more) have an electronic speed limit of 155 MPH. So to worry that your next Ford will keep you from speeding is showing only idiocy and paranoia.
TFM| 10.27.08 @ 12:14PM
For better or worse, this is an idea I pushed while being a "calibration" engineer @ Ford. The noted 155 MPH limit is absurd. It is currently based on the tire capability of the vehicle (and other factors) & may be far lower. As to the future, this is what's possible:
Speed limit as a function of your location in the US. Your GPS location can easily by used to determine the local speed limit (think ON_STAR).
Fuel economy mandates - Limit acceleration rates of a vehicle regardless of horsepower. This is remarkable easy to do.
Give police the option to stop a vehicle at any time (electronically) to prevent high speed chases. Again, remarkable easy to implement. All of the hardware & software have already been invented.
The list is nearly endless.
Fred S.| 10.27.08 @ 12:24PM
Uh, hey Mike... did it ever occur to you that part of that epidemic of bad driving out there is someone "passing" a car by spending 10 minutes blocking the passing lane doing it at 1/4 mph faster than the car its going around? And the road rage that goes with getting behind said mental deficient? When you pass someone you put your foot on the gas and get it done. It takes power. BTW if we're all for safety perhaps the ability to accelerate at a high rate of speed from a dangerous situation qualifies.
Uh, hey John... I would think it doesn't take a huge intellect to see that the issue here isn't one of technology, it's one of philosophy and ideology. By opening the door to "protecting the children!!!" we can begin down the slippery slope to protecting us all (like the children the government knows us to be), which apparently people like Mike will fall right in lock-step with.
BTW, perhaps the answer to the revenue dilemma will come in the form of special premium licenses which will allow the barer to circumvent the speed restrictions, which, while being a revenue stream in itself, will also allow them to play the speed roulette game on our nation's highways just like it's done now.
PolishKnight| 10.27.08 @ 1:59PM
Chip enforced speed limits will not eliminate the police. It will just push their quotas into other areas of enforcement including cell phone while driving violators, right-on-reds (without fully stopping), "rolling" stop signs, illegal U-turns, etc.
Mike| 10.27.08 @ 2:05PM
Thank you Fred, I don't think I could have illustrated my points any better than you just have. However, I do have one correction to your scenario - that is I believe you mistakenly placed the 'mental deficient' label on the safe, courteous driver, instead of the 'road rager.'
As you are probably one of the 'road rager's' I will try to break down my thought process very simply, so you can keep up.
1. Road ragers, in their haste to get to where their going always feel rushed, and this results in their perception of time becoming warped. Your ¼ mph passing scenario taking 10 minutes is a good example of this: The average length of a passenger car is 13 feet, and say we take 2 car lengths back and 2 car lengths to the front to execute this passing manoeuvre gives us a total of 65 feet to cover. Passing this distance at a ¼ mph would take approximately 3 minutes, not 10. This scenario is fairly rare, and most vehicles do pass at a reasonable rate of speed, and do so in approximately 10 -20 seconds. However, to a road rager this would feel like an eternity, as they feel that they are the only important ones on the highway, so they find it necessary to put other road users in jeopardy by tailgating and weaving.
2. You say that having a speed limiter on your car would strip it of ‘power.’ A speed limiter does nothing to the power of a vehicle; it simply sets up an invisible barrier of speed that the vehicle can not breach. Ford is proposing the limiter set to 80 mph (5 mph more that the highest posted speed limits in North America). A responsible driver operating his or her vehicle at or around the speed limit would have ample power to execute a pass or avert the rare driving scenario where acceleration would prevent an accident.
3. The road ragers in their lust for speed, power, and total lack of respect for everyone else’s safety on the highway have already proven that they are children in need of a parents’/government’s or responsible industry’s intervention to restrict their poor behaviour. I would be proud if a government or industry had the balls to limit all vehicles on the roadway to save me and my family from the likes of you.
Ken| 10.27.08 @ 5:19PM
Read Mitchner's 'The Bridge at Andow.' The Russians did not have to find and punish Hungarians themselves. They knew that there are plenty of people in the population who will turn in and turn on neighbors of years. Mike, get a grip.
tish| 10.28.08 @ 11:09AM
Why do people insist upon driving above the speed limit? It is a fact that more teenagers die in car accidents than any other group because of a ridiculous "need for speed". The group with the greatest number of irresponsible drivers IS teenagers. I think that it is less a matter of worry about "big brother" telling you to obey the speed limit here, I think you guys who are against this are worried that "big brother" will ensure that you obey it. Sometimes the cops need help in keeping us safe from our own bad judgement and attitudes.
Yes, I am a parent. I am also against anarchy....the stupid belief that we citizens will ALWAYS do the right thing without the aid of any authority. We are still a fallen race, despite what the secularists insist upon.
There is a problem with teenaged drivers today. Too many are getting themselves (and others) killed on the road due to speeding. If it takes big brother to reign them in, so be it. If the anarchy-minded don't like it....oh well.
wolf labounty| 10.28.08 @ 2:41PM
limits, controls, violations, penalties, rate increases ...all in the name of "safety" you say...
Idoubt it highly...if there were a real driving instruction/testing done by the bulging bureaucratic DMV perhaps we would be serious about driving and safty..rather than using cars/driving as an "addition tax revenue" for caring politicians.
When you are giving the exact same driving test and get the same license that allows you to drive a 1955 VW and a 2008 Z6 'Vette ...your not serious about safty at all..
putting restrictions on the vehicles rather than demand drivers attain a certain skill level only makes it easier to "shoot fish in a barrell" with "violations"..it has nothing to do with safty.
wolf
Matt| 10.29.08 @ 11:09PM
There is no battle here between polities that rely upon funds acquired through the enforcement of dubiously set traffic laws and technology...the technology will come, they will lose that stream of income, and the response to less money in the coffers is easy to predict: higher FILL IN THE BLANK taxes/fees/what you will. Heaven forbid expenditures be cut!
I do not have faith in many earthly things, but I am certain that bureaucrats will always find ways to milk the public of their money in the name of the People (whomever they may be...).