Are keyless start/stop systems safe?
I gotta confess, I'm not so good with car keys. I'm always fumbling to find them at the bottom of my purse, and even though I have a designated drop spot for them in the house, half the time I never remember to put them there. Yep: I am the pathetic sap who is always late because she can never find her keys. Because of my absent-mindedness, I am a huh-yoooge fan of the passive entry and keyless-start systems that allow me to drop my car key into my purse, get into the car, and press a button to drive away. I'm looking forward to having this feature on my next car so I never have to worry about finding - or losing - my car keys again. Once a feature only found on high-end luxury vehicles, these smart key systems have migrated to all segments of the market -- including bargain-priced Kias and will even be an option on the budget-minded Fiesta to be released later this year. I simply can't remember the last press vehicle I drove that actually required inserting a key directly into the vehicle's ignition or keyhole. Some systems even allow you to start your car remotely, so you can warm up or cool down your vehicle before you enter it. But what happens if you forget the vehicle is running? Is it a safety issue if you hit the remote start and get sidetracked on your way to the car? What if you're an absent-minded driver who grabs the fob from its convenient cubby and forgets to hit the "off" button before walking away? Some vehicles will beep at you to alert you that you have walked away with the key while it is still running. Others may automatically power down on their own after idling for a certain amount of time. But some models do nothing to alert the driver that the vehicle is still running. One of AskPatty's readers emailed us with concerns about her 2009 Nissan Murano S with a push-button start system. Even after six months of owning the vehicle, both she and her husband had absent-mindedly removed the vehicle's keyfob from its slot in the dashboard and walked away with the engine running. She felt this was a safety issue, the dealer did not. What do you think? Is hers a problem of user error or poor design? On the other hand, others are concerned that such systems might make a vehicle more difficult to turn off in emergency situations. According to an article in this weekend's Los Angeles Times some motorists have reported that they were unable to shut down engines during highway emergencies. Not all motorists with these systems know how they work, or how to shut the car off during an emergency. Depending on the vehicle, drivers must hold down the power button for one to three full seconds if the vehicle is moving; unfortunately, many drivers are not fully aware of how to do this under normal circumstances, much less in an emergency such as the cases of sudden unintended acceleration reported by some Toyota owners. In my opinion, shutting off the engine while the vehicle is moving may not be the best option because doing so will cause the driver to lose power steering and possibly braking ability. A better method to stop a runaway vehicle is to shift the vehicle into neutral and coast to a stop; once you've moved safely to the side of the road, THEN you can power down the vehicle. Some safety experts suggest that a warning should be included on the dashboard, telling motorists how to shut off the engine, though manufacturers typically resist installing such labels. Other experts predict that such issues will disappear as the systems become more mainstream and predictable to users. "As they become more widely adopted, I think we'll find that they converge in how they operate," says Dave Proefke, a vehicle security engineer at General Motors. What do you think about these smart key systems? A time saver for key-impaired folks like me? Or dangerous to the absent-minded driver who forgets to turn her car off?
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