Will Ford’s MyKey help curb (some) teens’ unsafe driving?

A poor implemention of a (potentially) good technology.

Rather than have a key simply limit the speed of a particular vehicle to say, 60 mph, still allowing a crassly idiotic driver to kill someone apart from themselves in a built-up area, why not have the road inform the vehicle what the limit is and the vehicle will not exceed that limit, for every driver and every vehicle.

The technologies already exist to do this. Cruise control enables a car to be driven at a set speed, GPS knows the location of the car and the applicable speed limit, or RFID tags buried in the road surface could signal the speed limit and other useful information to passing vehicles, or roads could be bar-coded, etc. In other words, why bother telling the driver what the speed limit is, tell the car instead.

We can get rid off all that horrible street furniture: speed limit signs, Gatso cameras, speed humps, SLOW DOWN, which are unnecessary distractions to good drivers. And no driver will need to worry about unintentionally breaking the speed limit or points on their license as a result.

Speed limits can be more accurately targetted to road conditions and thereby raised to more realistic levels for ALL drivers, not just the selfish minority who flout the law. (The current thinking seems to be: “Lets make it 20/30mph because some drivers are going to drive at 40mph anyway”.)

Em lights blue touch paper and retires amongst howls of protest … .

A good idea in practice, although I do think a speed limiter would be an idea for people of all ages, as it isn’t just teens who speed. I think a better alternative is the likes of the black box schemes such as i-Kube and Young Marmalade. This monitors how young people drive and offers points for good driving, subtracts points for bad driving, and a fee of £40 if venturing out after 11pm. I had i-Kube for my first year, before black boxes became popular, and it really reduced the insurance premium yet allowed me to get about. Sure, the 11pm “curfew” thingy was a bit inconvenient now and again, but the amount I was saving made it worth it. This MyKey would be a good idea if the young driver is sharing a car with their parent, but what if they picked up the wrong key?
It’s a shame teenagers still sit in the high-risk category. Those of us who are sensible are probably the majority, but this is unfortunately ignored by insurance companies thanks to all the press coverage that “young drivers are demon drivers”, all the clowns who drive around uninsured, or who aren’t insured properly.
Good on Ford for trying something new, but I think the observation black boxes are a slightly better idea and they can of course be retrofitted.

Having had the choice of a Morris Minor or a Land Rover Discovery immediately after I passed my test 10 years ago, it was noticeable that when I did not have music my concentration level was better than driving in the modern Disco. As a new, young, or inexperienced driver placing restriction is not a bad idea for a set period of time allowing the driver to gain real road experience.
Just out of interest in The Morris Minor I went slowly and people were always forgiving of a classic car and when I drove the Disco with “P” plates again people gave me plenty of room. So it just proves other drivers views can be influenced.

Perfect! I’m sorry that teenagers are being targeted as the main market, as there are plenty of adolescent 40 something men and women out there that could do with the MyKey system installed permanently on their vehicles. However, teenagers ARE inexperienced, ARE prone to foolish tricks in front of their friends when mum and dad are not around, ARE rashly exuberant, and unfortunately ARE the biggest number of statistical deaths on the UK roads year on year and increasing. If reducing their abilities to be distracted, silly, and dangerous saves just one car-full of children, and let us not fool ourselves here, an eighteen year old is a child in terms of worldly experience, then I am all for such a clever device.