May be old news? But I saw this on the news last night, pretty cool feature. I imagine it will end up on the 2010 Mustang

http://jalopnik.com/5059406/ford-nan...d-radio-volume

 

ahh...thats terrible not a fan of that...but i guess i dont have kids yet but still....

 

i would not like this in my mustang, it seems like something a soccer mom in a van would have.

 

It's not like there would be some sticker in the car saying "Soccer Mom".

It's simply the computer changing the limits or behaviors of some of the vehicles systems IF activated to a certain key.

If you never turn it on you'll never know it's there.

But think of the possibilities for a valet key. Keep the teenager from hot ******* in your 400HP muscle car.

In theory this is already possible with a tuner like one from Brenspeed. Though reflashing your car everytime the kid takes it wouldn't be very convenient, technically your car already has everything it needs for this MyKey system except the button to activate it.

 

if i can control it i dont care

 

Yeah, I think the tuner works fine for people who really want to limit the car.. but.. this is not a good thing.

<Paranoid Fearmongering>
If one day, every car produced has this feature, it will not be long before the government will mandate that every car has this feature - and then it's very easy to see the government imposing restrictions on our own driving.

Got a speeding ticket? Your car gets detuned by the State and you cannot rev past 5k RPM or drive faster than 80mph for 60 months.

And then 10 years after that, it will be easy to just do away with the speeding punishment completely - why not just make speeding impossible to begin with? Then your max speed will be automatically determined by the speed limit on the road you're on, as determined by the GPS.

Hard to believe? Remember this post in 25 years. Ok. Done fearmongering.
</Fearmongering>

 

All cars will have a "black box" by 2012, if not before. I blame greedy attys. My apologizes to the non-tort attys out there.

http://www.autoblog.com/2008/09/24/f...-to-black-box/

 

Bad news!

 

Could be useful. Once again, if it's there to use, I'll eventually find a use for it. Maybe to prevent lead-footed stepfathers (like mine) from hotdoggin' your car when he takes it to the store real quick, or if your like me, while I'm deployed. That's a LOT of oppertunities to ride it hard while I'm gone!

 

Modern computer controlled cars already have the capability to do this. If the government wanted to do it, they could be already.

And actually if you are driving unsafely enough to have such a drastic measure taken, then I would probably be in favor of it.

 

The government has the ability to, but it will take a few decades before the public will be swayed into supporting it.

And mark my words, they will enact these drastic measures on EVERYONE, eventually. Why spend billions on highway patrol when you can just make sure everyone drives exactly 55mph? Like I said, check back in 25 years.. you will not have to do anything unsafe in order to have your rights limited drastically.

All you (figuratively, you = the masses, the people) have to do is continue to be sheep.

 

While I agree with a lot of where you're going with this, remember one thing...

The only thing the government likes more than control of the sheep is fleecing the sheep... and believe it when I tell you that many traffic laws, while good in principle, are really just more ways to separate you from your money, giving it back to the government which in turn gets to make more laws... etc...

 

In 25 years we won't even be driving our cars. We'll have something like what's in I, Robot or The Minority Report.

 

Again, this same tune was sung over 25 years ago, and we ain't there yet. While we have the technology, the infrastructure cost to implement is prohibitive. We can't even maintain the infrastructure we have now, and all "mass" transit systems are so heavily subsidized by the vast majority that do NOT use them in order to keep the usage cost semi-reasonable that there's little room for improvement there. At least not until fuel prices reach $20/gal or so in today's dollars.

Not gonna happen. We Americans are too ornery, too independent (and too self-centered, in all honesty) to allow our "leaders" to hobble us to that degree, IMHO. We will always (again, IMO) find a way to buck the system, to maintain at least an illusion of freedom and independence.

Yes, there are many sheep among us these days, but I think the non-sheep are still the majority, and even in some future minority status will be strong enough to keep us vehicularly independent for the next 100 years or more.

We may all be driving glorified golf carts in 50 years or so, but even then the hot-rodders among us will find a way to hop them up. The government tried to hobble us once before with the 55 mph speed limit. How many "sheep" obeyed that law? Not bloody many.

As for the "black boxes", there was already one recent attempt to allow them to collect & maintain speed, location, accelerator, braking, time of day, etc. data for "accident analysis". With GPS and all the sensors already in most vehicles, it's a very easy & cheap thing to do. Fortunately, this was beaten back by the civil libertarians as an invasion of privacy. While it is allowed for some fleet vehicles, IIRC, it is NOT allowed for POVs. (Not yet, anyway. One of the few instances where I support the ACLU...)

Long live vehicular freedom and driver-only control (at least, for adult drivers...)!!!

 

First of all I wasn't being serious. I thought the movie references would have made that clear. I apologize for not putting a silly smiley face to drive the point home.

Second, the black boxes are available to the courts by court order. So you aren't completely safe. And in fact, to make those court orders easier to enforce the federal government has created regulations to standardize what info is recorded and how it is recorded. Much like the OBD system of every car is identical.


http://www.autoweek.com/apps/pbcs.dl...809189970/1065

 

Yup, that was the reference I had in mind. Couldn't recall the source, though.

I also thought there was a reference somewhere to the recording being limited to the last 30 seconds before an "event", but I could be wrong.

Sorry I didn't get the less-than-serious intent. My bad.

The only point I was really trying to make is that it's up to us as Americans and individuals to keep this kind of stuff from taking over our lives, let alone our driving habits. And that I have faith in the contrary nature of enough Americans, especially car guys and gals, to keep "1984" from becoming reality...

 

I agree with you there on that point. My fear is that people will just sit back till it's too late.

And I'm fairly sure that I read that most record only 5 seconds prior to the accident. But I think that was just referring to what was currently common practice not what the new regulations will require.