Owners of keyless cars have been dying of Carbon Monoxide Poisoning after mistakenly thinking that their car had stopped running. In most scenarios, the car owner parks the vehicle in the house garage and takes the wireless key fob thinking that the car has shut down while it hasn’t. Overnight, the garage and the house fills with odorless carbon monoxide gas, leaving the owner and other potential house residents dead or severely injured.
Keyless ignitions are now standard in over half of the 17 million new vehicles sold annually in the United States, according to the auto information website Edmunds. Rather than a physical key, drivers carry a fob that transmits a radio signal, and as long as the fob is present, a car can be started with the touch of a button. However, now removed from the habit of turning and removing a key to shut off the motor, drivers mistakenly believe that the engine has stopped running.
On a summer morning last year, Fred Schaub drove his Toyota RAV4 into the garage attached to his Florida home and went into the house with the wireless key fob, evidently believing the car was shut off. Twenty-nine hours later, he was found dead, overcome with carbon monoxide that flooded his home while he slept.
“After 75 years of driving, my father thought that when he took the key with him when he left the car, the car would be off,” said Mr. Schaub’s son Doug.
Mr. Schaub is among more than two dozen people killed by carbon monoxide nationwide since 2006 after a keyless-ignition vehicle was inadvertently left running in a garage. Dozens of others have been injured, some left with brain damage.
The exact number of deaths related to carbon monoxide from keyless-ignition vehicles left running is unknown, as no federal agency keeps comprehensive records. Through 2016, the most recent year for which data is available, the safety agency had investigated only four fatal incidents. From news reports, lawsuits, police and fire records and incidents tracked by advocacy groups, The Times has identified 28 deaths and 45 injuries since 2006, but the figures could be higher.
In 2009 after several other similar accidents were reported, the Society of Automotive Engineers formed a panel to develop recommended practices to address keyless ignition hazards. In 2011, the group recommended an audible or visual alert or even automatic shut off of the engine if all doors are closed and the key fob is not present. That same year the NHTSA proposed a new rule with similar recommendations.
The auto industry could have complied with the proposal by a simple change in software coding which would have cost them less than $500,000 a year but they decided to oppose it. Since then, the NHTSA postponed the adoption of a keyless ignition regulation 3 times and 21 people died.
Keyless ignitions have clearly become a real danger, especially with elderly drivers. How many more people will have to die before simple changes are made to protect drivers?
NYT Article:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/13/business/deadly-convenience-keyless-cars-and-their-carbon-monoxide-toll.html