Leaving the Smart Key in the car

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Benevento\";p=\"52597)</div>

OK, confession time.

I always wear a seat belt (does it have anything to do with being married to a flight attendant?) and I have had a colonoscopy. On the other hand, I always leave my Prius unlocked in my locked garage and the fob hangs not quite 10 feet from the car. So far, I have had no dead battery issues; however, I believe that the SKS does not search for the fob when the car is unlocked.

 

i beg to differ, my 8 year old when he was 5 was very very good at imitating everything i did. it would have taken him about 5 mins to figure out how to start the car and he would be there doing exactly that.

i remember when he was 3 and got into the car (we never locked it and pretend to drive. unfortunately, he did kill the battery once or twice on the one car we didnt drive often because he was strong enough to open the door, but he couldnt close it hard enough so the dome light killed the battery.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(popsrcr\";p=\"52542)</div>

When I was in high school, one of my classmates took his little cousin (8 years old) with him to the bank in his trans-am. He left his cousin in the car with the keys in the ignition.

The kid managed to start the car, put it into gear, and drive it through the doors of the bank within 3 minutes. You really think a power button and brake pedal would stop a determined child?

 

Another story:

When I was 3, my dad had a 50s era car that used a push button type gear shift (I don't know what the make and model was). I thought it was really cool. One day he left me alone in the car for a minute while it was in the driveway and I started pushing those buttons. Put the car into neutral and it began to roll down the driveway. Fortunately he came out of the house in time to jump in and stop it before I crashed into something.

 

dek... are you talking about a 1962 Plymouth valiant??

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(DaveinOlyWA\";p=\"52708)</div>

I did a little web research. It looks like the Valiant had the shift buttons in a row and I remember them in a cluster. But I was only 3 so my memory could easily be wrong. This picture of a '59 Chrysler 300E looks familiar (the gear shift buttons are way on the left). I suppose that I was destined to be a Prius owner even back then!

[Broken External Image]:http://www.hornig.net/media/ACF94EB.jpg

 

Well, I guess I have to fess up and say it was a very poor guess. And, maybe I'm not clear in what I meant. Not that a 5 yr old couldn't figure it out, but all the ones I'm around couldn't physically reach it. I just don't see how they could push the pedal and reach the button.
Maybe we grow 'em small here, do not know.

Doc, our opinions differ, such is life.

Oh, I'll add now that I always wear a seat belt. Feels funny without them, but I don't really think we should be forced to wear them, much like I don't think I should be forced to pay for stinkin' airbags in my car.

 

Not worrying about theft is great for the blood pressure. Actual theft probably does less damage overall than all the worrying we do about it. So I approve of leaving your door unlocked (if you are comfortable with that -- my mom does that).

But there are some things it is irresponsible to leave unlocked, such as weapons. All your arguments about safe neighborhoods would be irrelevant if we were talking about leaving a loaded revolver unlocked.

A car can be a dangerous weapon in the hands of a kid. No matter that there are no kids living nearby. I think it is irresponsible to leave the key in a car. And with SKS there's really no need to leave the key in the car. Leave it in your pants or purse and you never have to touch it.

Just my two cents worth.

 

My friend owns a Valient down the street. Everything in it has buttons. The strangest car. But it does look pretty cool.. or at least if it was cleaned i would. Or through my camera it looked good.

 

Re. the Smart Key

On taking off on a recent road trip to California I found that I couldn't lock my doors without using the key. As it turned out, I had placed my spare fob in my luggage. The problem was solved by wrapping the spare in aluminum foil.

 

I just brought my car home and had forgotten that the bag in the car had the other fob which was messing with the system so I also had issues with locking and unlocking. Took me a bit to figure out what the deal was.

 

Two comments.
#1 If you do not have your seat belt on and the airbags deploy you are more likely to be injured particularly as we get older. The safety engineers who designed these systems designed the seat belts and air bags to work together. Use both.
#2 You can store the fob in the car with out consequences. There is good news and bad news. The good news is that the fob can stay in the car, in a Faraday box. This would be a small ferrous (steel, iron, nickle) box that covers the fob completely. The bad news is you will not be able to just get in the car and go, you will have to take the fob out of the box.