Posted on 08/28/2015 11:32:42 AM PDT by Smittie
Some of the world’s biggest automakers should have recalled millions of vehicles with keyless ignitions because the cars, which don’t shut off automatically if the driver fails to press the start/stop button, could be a deadly carbon monoxide risk, according to a new lawsuit.
According to the suit, filed in Los Angeles Federal Court on behalf of keyless car drivers Wednesday, there have been at least 13 deaths -- and a number of close calls -- from carbon monoxide poisoning after consumers failed to manually shut off their engines. The suit claims, “Reasonable drivers mistakenly believe that removing the Keyless Fob from the vehicle turns off the engine.”
Keyless cars allow drivers to start their engines without inserting a key into the ignition switch, but instead pressing a start/stop button. To shut off the car, they must manually press the button again.
The lawsuit claims the defendants -- Toyota, Ford, Nissan, Honda, GM, BMW, Volkswagen, Bentley, Mercedes-Benz, Hyundai and Kia -- knew or should have known of these risks. Yet according to the suit, they allegedly sold keyless fobs “without instituting adequate safeguards, warnings, or other safety features,” including a relatively inexpensive auto-off feature that automatically switches the engine off if the car is left unattended.
(Excerpt) Read more at gma.yahoo.com ...
How does one even get out of a running car without hearing the engine? Maybe these thirteen who died were deaf or hard of hearing?
It may be a problem if one is intoxicated. Common sense makes sense but not to the lawsuiters out there.
They have a thing that looks like a key, and a place in the car to put the key, then you use a button to start the car?
And they didn’t expect people to forget to push to stop button? First of all, if you pull out the key, then after XX years of driving, you expect the car to turn itself off. Secondly, everything in the world has an automatic cut-off.
Of course people will not remember to push a button to turn the car off!!!
And if only to protect themselves, the makers of those cars should have them in case someone ****dies**** for lack of one!!!!!!!! Sheesh!
My old car wouldn’t shut off unless you tuned the key to the off position. Very dangerous.
Reminds me of the urban myth, back in the 1970s.
A wealthy Arab visitor to the US rents a tricked out full size (that’s all they sold then) Econoline van.
He puts puts the van on cruise control on the interdate and gets up from his captain chair to go in the back. He perishes in the ensuing crash.
I suppose cars could come with built-in Carbon Monoxide detectors that could shut off the engine if a high-level is observed.
I think cars should give a quick intelligence test and not start for idiots.
Mine doesn't have a place to put the key. You have the key in your pocket push the button and the car starts. Push the stop button and it turns off.
When I grew up almost A:: cars had a start button...ON THE FLOOR! I installed a start button in almost all vehicles I’ve had since my new 1967 Mustang. Even the minivans mrs p6 and I had in the 80’s - 90’s had them.
I tried putting one in our 1998 Durango but didn’t realize the new...I say stupid...anti theft stuff realized the system had been tampered with and I had to take the truck to the dealer to have the entire system reset!
I think I’ll build my own dang car!I
It’s very difficult to get CO poisoning from any relatively modern car, though.
So the story doesn’t make much sense.
Any car with a working CAT has over 99% of the CO removed from the exhaust by the CAT.
Even a car built in 1985, with a working CAT, puts out very little CO.
lol!!
Everybody tries to make stuff idiot proof, but the world is always building better idiots.
I think the issue is when cars are left running in attached garages.
It starts with sex. If there was a Step A followed by a Step B, you would see a sharp increase in IQ’s....
I have one and I still haven’t gotten used to it. I carry mine in my pocket. It beeps at you if you get out of the car and it is still running.
Maybe you don’t want your car to turn off. If I get out of my car to get the mail etc., I don’t want it to shutoff. In my Ford, if I do get out and walk more than a two feet from the truck, the horn beeps twice to tell me I left it running without the key being inside.
It is just as easy to leave the fob in the car and walk away in the garage so an automatic shutoff based on the fob does not work either.
“How does one even get out of a running car without hearing the engine?”
My guess is that many newer cars, in order to comply with EPA regulations and CAFE standards, default to an “economy mode” in which the engine shuts off when the car comes to a stop, and starts again when you take your foot off the brake. I don’t know if they start again automatically after a period of time. The loaner car I have today does that and it is most irritating. Shuts off at every red light or if you are idling for more than a few seconds.
The direct cause of these deaths is driver stupidity.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.