A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to My Car…

Has Paula Poundstone been reading our memos to NHTSA about the serious safety problems created by keyless ignition systems? This weekend, the comedienne broke into a spontaneous and funny rant about them during her weekly gig with the NPR news quiz show “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me!”

“You know what my car has that is the worst feature I’ve ever had in a car? Is this damn thing where you don’t put the key in!” she fumes about the systems which allow a driver to exit the vehicle with the key fob and the engine running. “And it’s so frustrating! I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gotten back to the car – oh, Geez, I left it running again! You have no way of knowing that the car’s running!”

(Listen to Paula Poundstone on keyless ignition — Poundstone’s comments begin at about the eight-minute mark.)

Timing is everything in comedy, and as it happens, Ms. Poundstone offered her observational bit just a week after NHTSA posted a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to “fix” the problems introduced by keyless ignition systems: rollaways and carbon monoxide poisonings. Unfortunately, some people who took their key fobs with them, while inadvertently leaving their vehicles running in an attached garage, died from carbon monoxide poisonings. Rollaways have produced their share of injuries and property damage. These incidents are not so funny.

Many people victimized by poor designs blame themselves for their forgetfulness. But we think Ms. Poundstone hit the mark when she called it “the worst feature” she’s ever had in a car. We similarly think that NHTSA solution is a work-around and doesn’t serve the intent of FMVSS 114 or consumers, who have to pay – not to mention risk their safety – for industry’s and regulators’ bad decisions.

Stay tuned. We’ll be submitting our comments to the docket. In the meantime, if you, like Paula Poundstone, have left your keyless ignition car running, but aren’t a regular radio-show panelist, tell NHTSA by submitting a Vehicle Owner Questionnaire.  Or comment directly to the proposal in Docket NHTSA-2011-0174.

(For more on keyless ignition hazards see Stupid Tricks with Smart Keys)