Technology continues to advance at a remarkable pace, but sometimes unexpected problems occur that clearly never occurred to either the manufacturer or the users of the product.
As you will learn in this next story, this lack of foresight could have ended up with deadly consequences. Keyless ignition systems are both fantastically convenient, as well as simple to use. You don’t have to try and find the slot for the key to fit into on a dark and wet evening, once quick press of a button and the car starts or stops. It is absolutely brilliant and a wonderful example of technology making our lives simpler.
But due to this system Erin, a 13-year-old girl nearly lost her life. Her parents drove their vehicle into their garage which happens to be directly underneath Erin’s bedroom. When they hit the button to kill the engine, they didn’t press it hard enough, and the car didn’t switch off. Due to the extremely quiet engine noise, they were unaware that the engine was still on and they closed the garage door and went to bed. It was only later that night when luckily Erin woke up feeling woozy and sick that the family discovered anything was wrong. With no fail-safe method to automatically turn the car off after a set period of time, there needs to be some sort of rethink in the design. Watch the video and then help Erin’s parents spread the word about this design flaw.