Hm. What does an orange Volvo keyfob and today’s question have in common? Behavior observation, that’s what. Here’s what I mean: That orange key is another part of Volvo’s frankly concerning efforts to keep everybody safe in the vehicles they build, no matter what. Already, Volvo has voluntarily limited their vehicle’s speeds to 112 miles per hour, but that isn’t enough. That orange fob is the “Care Key”, and it allows the owner of the vehicle to imply whatever speed limit under 112 MPH they see fit, plus an in-car camera that will monitor your behavior behind the wheel. Wait, what?! Yeah, you read that right…here’s a quote directly from Volvo:
“Håkan Samuelsson, Volvo Cars’ chief executive, said this month that the company wants to start a conversation about whether car makers have the right or maybe even the obligation to install technology in cars that changes their owners’ behaviour. Now that such technology is available to use, this question becomes even more important.
The speed limit and the Care Key are both part of that initiative and illustrate how car makers can take active responsibility for striving to achieve zero traffic fatalities by supporting better driver behaviour.”
Oh, for the love of everything holy. I’ll leave that there, because that’s a different tangent for another day that will take me four hours to write and another two hours to edit down to BangShift-friendly language. Better drivers, stronger driver training, and if you need your car to coddle you, shred your license and start up an Uber budget in your finance logs.
You want to know what behavior monitoring should be? It should be two kids in the back seat watching the rear view mirror very carefully to see if the parents’ eyes were flicking directly towards them. A lot of the cars that I grew up in had one major fault, in the eyes of kid McT: I was always within reaching distance, not good when your younger brother is the kind of pain in the ass that loves to irritate at every opportunity. The pattern was so clear it wasn’t funny – he’d antagonize, I’d boil until I exploded, I attacked, he cried, I got punished. Sound familiar to any of you? That was behavior monitoring. Forget “I’ll turn this car around…”, it was more like “I’ll pull this car over and you both will feel the wrath”.
Driver behavior and monitoring it…what’s your take on the whole subject?
I’m with you McT, this nanny state stuff is getting out of hand.
[Edit] The other problem is that alot of peple have no remorse for thier actions.
Dawn the tRump mask before entering and go pick up some hookers.
Big brother always checking in on us, to put us in time out.
The sad reality to the “nanny state” is that we bring this on ourselves. There wouldn’t be the vast majority of such tech if there wasn’t a segment of the population out there doing the things that need to be regulated. And a large portion of the rest of us are reactive to a situation instead of proactive.
Don’t want your car to regulate you? Don’t drive like an asshole on the highway.
Don’t want to have to have backup cameras in every new car? (an actual new industry regulation) Don’t back over some kid in your driveway.
Don’t want the town to shut down you car get together? Don’t hold impromptu burn out contests in the street when you leave.
Newton was correct. “Every action has an equal and opposite reaction”.
It’s funny that this technology is coming from Volvo which has always been a nanny state company. My opinion is don’t buy these types of cars, problem solved.
I’d drive a tan 4 door Granada before I’d ever buy a car like this. I actually considered buying a Volvo. They can stick the key in their ass now.
Maybe you should take a look at the Onstar systems that were installed in every GM pickup and SUV starting in 2008. It connects with GM every single day. This is the result of the Ford Explorer and exploding Firestone tires, and the resulting lawsuits. What do you suppose it was telling GM about you and your driving?
BMW’s had a nifty feature where the car will narq on you if you ignore the check engine light by having the dealership actually call you about it.
Etc, etc,
Volvo promises deathproof cars by 2020
This promise was made in 2016. They have to resort to some pretty drastic measures, they are nearly out of time!
https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/20/luxury/volvo-no-death-crash-cars-2020/
Talk about becoming a Nanny State.
My neighbor came over and showed me his new car.
Some Subaru SUV kinda thing – wasn’t that interested to be honest.
He starts on about all the safety features –
the lights come on automatic
the wipers come on if it detects rain
some lane wandering alert Bla Bla Bla
I ask him if Subaru drivers are stupid or just bad drivers?
He is still going on and on – the points out it got some collision avoidance thingy and will apply the brakes and stop before it hits anything.
By now he has my interest and I tell him I want to see it work.
I said for him to stand in the middle of the road and I’ll drive towards him and I promise I won’t go over 40mph and we’ll see it work.
By this stage he is looking in the owners manual and starting to back pedal.
To me it just tells that they are trying to idiot proof driving. I ride a old bike and have hot rods and I can tell you what ever car makers are doing isn’t working because every time i’m out the shit I see on the road – jeez.
There is even a new Volvo ad on TV where the female driver is cruising along whilst looking down to get her coffee as a small child crosses a pedestrian crossing and the car senses the child and comes to abrupt stop.
The kid looks stunned and I’m not sue if the woman is shocked/pissed – I mean the car probably has a heat cup holder but apparently you don’t have to pay any attention to any thing.
A bit of a rant I guess – my wife has a late model car and I get some of the shit, the blue tooth, cruise, reverse camera. But I don’t need or want my car to do all the thinking.