Kill Switch

Technology can save us, like when you need to reattach that hand you inadvertently removed with your new Christmas band saw. Modern microsurgery beats Dr. Frankenstein's techniques by a wide margin.

Technology can also kill us: witness the news about those nifty electronic keyless ignitions that are so complicated you can't turn your car off when, let's say, it begins to accelerate out of control and you hit 90 in the parking lot at TJs.

Trapped in a speeding car and unable to twist a conventional key and turn the thing off might be exciting. And we all need the occasional surge of adrenaline to remind us we are alive. But dying while doing so is somewhat pointless, unless you are trying to make a point, like 'TJ's parking lots suck'. Even so, the point is nearly moot, since you'll be dead and unable to enjoy the larger, roomier, vroomier lots.

Sadly, the automobile industry is in a conundrum, and this conundrum is making the whole keyless thing more pesky and sometimes deadly than it ought to be. The car makers are having what appears to be a format war, not as heated as Betamax vs VHS, or Blue Ray vs whatever that other boring format was, but certainly more dangerous. I've never heard of anyone getting killed by a Betamax, unless they happened to be under one when it was thrown unceremoniously out a high-story window.

Now, apparently, you CAN turn off a moving car equipped with a keyless push button ignition, but the technique differs between manufacturers and most require the driver to push and hold the button for three seconds, or tap it three times, or some other OCD kind of code. Now imagine yourself whipping down your local residential street at 60 and accelerating and there's a sharp right turn ahead bordered on all sides by immovable buildings and trees. Unless your driver training included preparation as a stunt driver for the Dukes of Hazzard, you are not going to make that turn and will be frantically searching for a way to turn the car off. And you won't have three seconds.

It would be best if the factories could make cars that can listen and respond to their drivers. So, if you scream like a frightened wolverine the car shuts off. Or better yet slows gracefully and takes it's delirious passenger safely to the nearest curb and dials his therapist.

That would be cool, but I imagine it would require even more complicated technology, and there could be differences between manufacturer implementations. For one, you scream like the aforementioned wolverine, for another like a stuck pig. Confusing.

Luckily, there's a low-tech and simple answer to the conundrum which has been employed on motorcycles for ages: the Kill Switch. A simple little rocker arm that when flicked cuts power and turns the vehicle off. Period. In far less than three seconds, with no tapping or counting.

There you go automobile folks, problem solved. I await my commission ...