RE: Ford's 'dad in the dashboard'

[Twincam16]

SpeckledJim said:

Fair enough. But this allows dad to have something reasonably pokey, and son to have something very uninspiring, in just one car.

Useful, no?

On the surface of it, it makes sense, but it depends on the way the power restriction is enacted and how stringent the restriction is.

If it limits engine power output, so that you basically just end up deactivating a cylinder or strangling the rate of combustion resulting in a car that's got a 'smaller' engine at the flick of a switch, it might work. However, if it's done electronically with the accelerator, so it can be pressed flat to the floor most of the time without the car breaking the speed limit to the point where throttle modulation is a meaningless concept, then IMO it's bad.

Also, limiting a car to 60mph is dangerous. Frankly, limiting it to 70 is dangerous - what do you do when you're on a motorway trying to overtake a foreign lorry that suddenly decides to change lanes?

Speed isn't bad. It's inappropriate speed that's bad, and with the limiter set artificially low, that just pushes the inappropriate speeders into lower-limited areas - ie ones with more cars and people in them to hit.

In order to create safer drivers, we need better driver training. I'd point you in the direction of my post on the 'how do we improve driving' thread where I suggest an alignment of the car test with the bike test, so we end up with a three-stage test that includes a handling section, where you have to prove you're capable of remaining in control during a relatively high-speed emergency avoidance manoevre.

[RemarkLima]

Twincam16 said:

Also, limiting a car to 60mph is dangerous. Frankly, limiting it to 70 is dangerous - what do you do when you're on a motorway trying to overtake a foreign lorry that suddenly decides to change lanes?

Erm, use the brakes? You can always lose speed faster than you can gain it... tis a rare thing that you truly power out of a problem, usually it's power that has got you there in the first place.

[LordFlathead]

otolith said:

LordFlathead said:

2) ABS brakes - does anyone actually remember what cadence braking was all about? Required skills were gained by practice and it gave you more control and therefor more confidence.

3) Traction control - eh? Just watch the pretty yellow squiggle and the car does it for you.. what would you do if it failed? Spin out probably!

That perception doesn't reflect the reality of how most people drive - on the rare occasions that they locked their brakes, people didn't tend to hone their cadence braking, they tended to plough straight on into the scenery. If a failed traction control system results in someone falling off the road, they were probably driving like knob in the first place. These are systems intended to help people out when they make mistakes, not features to lean on. The vast majority of drivers trigger them seldom and are aided when they do.

I quite understand why one might prefer not to use these systems in driver's cars, but for the average driver doing his average drive to work in his average family hatch, these things are a benefit.

And that is the whole point I am making. Driver aids do not make a good driver. Driver education does

[DeolTheBeast]

As a recent passer, I just find this a little too nanny state for my liking. I have a 3cyl Polo and I can say that making my own mistakes (as I did during my lessons) whilst out driving alone has probably made me try to iron out my bad habits.

Using this key won't really solve any problem - people will just get frustrated at being limited (imagine being 17, recently passing your test and being limited!) and if anything speed in the tighter bends will most likely be higher - causing more problems than anything.

Just my 2p -

[treetops]

simonrockman said:

traffman said:

I like the fact that it turns off the stereo if your not wearing a seatbelt.

Everything else is just pish .....if it were me i'd be doing my best to get the key.

Which means you've either got to have the music off or the seatbelt on when parked in a field shagging.


Simon

Nobody will beat that. Class!

[quality matters]

I think we underestimate the ability of teenager to crack the backdoor coding with some small ingenious device plugged in to the ECU via software his mate downloaded from the net.
It could all end in tears with dead cars that have fried ECU's and Dad looking daft in the dealers! maybe a little pessimistic though

[IATM]

what a pile of crap,

dont play in the mud, clean your hands every five minutes, dont let the child play in the park they may fall, dont eat this while your pregnant, dont do this dont do that....

what happened to simple education? teaching people what to do and not to do, learning from mistakes.

Edited by IATM on Saturday 24th November 22:49

[Gary C]

the stigs dad said:

The nannying is a step too far. As a teenager I'd have stolen my parents key anyway!

I just bought my own car :-)

Would be better if it had a data logging funtion with gps to see how they are driving if you want to keepl some contol.

But i agree with others that its better to start them in a very low power shed first (though I want them to have airbags). Two of ours have passed and they have a polo 1.0 which is tough but gutless.

[ZesPak]

IATM said:

what a pile of crap,

dont play in the mud, clean your hands every five minutes, dont let the child play in the park they may fall, dont eat this while your pregnant, dont do this dont do that....

what happened to simple education? teaching people what to do and not to do, learning from mistakes.

It's all fun and games 'till you put them in a 1500kg 200km/h death trap.

Hey, maybe he can run into your car, severely injuring (or worse) you and your family. Bet he won't do that twice, as he'll learn from his mistake!

[Andy ap]

Nick your mums key problem solved........One more thing have ford heard of the Playstation generation? the first thing some kids will do is take their key to some programmer mates and hey presto all limits will be taken of the car. Some companies may eventually spring up off the back of this anyway.

daft idea and wont work!

[CJE]

Lateral and longitudinal based speed limiting?

Accelerate too hard and the throttle is cut.

Corner too hard and the ABS kicks in to slow you while maintaining the steered line.

That along with the seatbelt and engine running interlocks, rpm and torque caps would make this genuinely useful at stopping bad driving.

Though if I was running a company car fleet I would make use of this, assigning all users a special key....

[pearly]

How about a light up (new driver) indicator in the back window, limit to 55mph, no motorways, engine doesn't start if seat belts not connected (so shagging with music still possible), curfew at selected time, equals cheaper insurance, money saved pays goes towards theme park, concert, motor racing tickets for them and friends to get adrenalin rush, kids live longer and look after parents when they are OAP,s. Win,win.

I was a nut case when I learnt to drive, lucky I didn't kill myself or anyone else, but nobody clamped down on me. A lot, but not all kids have less common sense than we did 20-30 years ago, so what chance does that give them.

[Pistonwot]

LordFlathead said:

otolith said:

LordFlathead said:

2) ABS brakes - does anyone actually remember what cadence braking was all about? Required skills were gained by practice and it gave you more control and therefor more confidence.

3) Traction control - eh? Just watch the pretty yellow squiggle and the car does it for you.. what would you do if it failed? Spin out probably!

That perception doesn't reflect the reality of how most people drive - on the rare occasions that they locked their brakes, people didn't tend to hone their cadence braking, they tended to plough straight on into the scenery. If a failed traction control system results in someone falling off the road, they were probably driving like knob in the first place. These are systems intended to help people out when they make mistakes, not features to lean on. The vast majority of drivers trigger them seldom and are aided when they do.

I quite understand why one might prefer not to use these systems in driver's cars, but for the average driver doing his average drive to work in his average family hatch, these things are a benefit.

And that is the whole point I am making. Driver aids do not make a good driver. Driver education does

Best of luck having that point acknowledged here.

[ts86net]

So instead of educating and positively influencing the inexperienced, we control them. Ridiculous.

[ZesPak]

pearly said:

I was a nut case when I learnt to drive, lucky I didn't kill myself or anyone else, but nobody clamped down on me. A lot, but not all kids have less common sense than we did 20-30 years ago, so what chance does that give them.

Plus, they do have ABS etc now, but does that compensate for the fact that every simple car can do 120mph nowadays?

[chris1972]

ts86net said:

So instead of educating and positively influencing the inexperienced, we control them. Ridiculous.

Control... that every Governments favourite pastime.... and dumbing down of course.

[magic_marker]

Well unlike most commenting here I think its a great idea! I think it could spread to other manufacturers and for higher powered cars to allow a 'dual character' for the car.

Main things I'd amend:

1. Change engine management system mapping according to the key - so as to cut 20-30% of the overall power delivery rather than just the top speed. Crawl before you walk!!!

2. GPS speed warnings (linked to Satnav) cannot be deactivated

3. GPS/telemetrics black box tracks behaviour and is easily downloadable to a PC so you can check how your offspring are behaving on the road.

4. Deafening noise for seatbelt warning associated to seat bum sensors.

[Twincam16]

magic_marker said:

Well unlike most commenting here I think its a great idea! I think it could spread to other manufacturers and for higher powered cars to allow a 'dual character' for the car.

Main things I'd amend:

1. Change engine management system mapping according to the key - so as to cut 20-30% of the overall power delivery rather than just the top speed. Crawl before you walk!!!

2. GPS speed warnings (linked to Satnav) cannot be deactivated

3. GPS/telemetrics black box tracks behaviour and is easily downloadable to a PC so you can check how your offspring are behaving on the road.

4. Deafening noise for seatbelt warning associated to seat bum sensors.

Problem with all this technology is though - if everyone decides it's a good idea for young people, how long will it be before it's decided that there's no solid argument to say it shouldn't be imposed on everyone all the time.

After all, if you won't allow your kids to go over 70mph, why are you going over 70mph?

[ZesPak]

Twincam16 said:

Problem with all this technology is though - if everyone decides it's a good idea for young people, how long will it be before it's decided that there's no solid argument to say it shouldn't be imposed on everyone all the time.

After all, if you won't allow your kids to go over 70mph, why are you going over 70mph?

You won't allow kids to drink beer, yet is it outlawed for adults?
Kids aren't allowed to drive, so why should we?

Imho it's a good thing to "ease" people into driving, instead of dropping them in the first thing available and "make 'em learn from their mistakes"

[renrut]

ZesPak said:

Twincam16 said:

Problem with all this technology is though - if everyone decides it's a good idea for young people, how long will it be before it's decided that there's no solid argument to say it shouldn't be imposed on everyone all the time.

After all, if you won't allow your kids to go over 70mph, why are you going over 70mph?

You won't allow kids to drink beer, yet is it outlawed for adults?
Kids aren't allowed to drive, so why should we?

Imho it's a good thing to "ease" people into driving, instead of dropping them in the first thing available and "make 'em learn from their mistakes"

Isnt' that a good argument for graded licences though rather than having a nanny system?

However they're not mutually exclusive - if the nanny restrictions had a tie in with a licence structure e.g. in nanny mode its the car equivalent performance of a restricted 500cc motorbike. Pass a further test after your first one and you can leap right into the 800bhp TTV8 superSUV but otherwise you have to wait 5 years and the licence is automatically upgraded. I can definitely see the value in that. Forget GPS crap though, just restrict performance i.e. power limit of say 60bhp, if you're driving soemthing that needs more than that to be 'safe' then you should be getting a higher licence anyway as its likely to be a big/heavy vehicle with all of the additional things to worry about.

The question is - do the banded licences have any impact on Motorbike KSIs? That would tell you straight away if its gonna make much of a difference.