My RX-8 would beep when it was time to shift. Since the engine was so quiet and had a 9,000 rpm redline.

Saboth

Simple solution, buy them a slow car that they can ding up for a first car. If your looking for safety buy them a truck, it limits the number of distracting passengers they can carry and you can easily find a slow one like a Toyota with the 22RE engine, very reliable but tops out at 85 (I put mine to the test).

venomous_duck41

I adore the idea of the car dinging when the seatbelts aren't on.

I also don't mind the idea of a volume limit...>.> But that's just petty revenge on my part. When you're making the giant school bus two cars away from you vibrate, your music is too loud.

Ajh

@bobman1235: As for limiting the speed to 80... 80? Really? You wanna limit your kid's speed, give him a 1972 Gremlin. Let's see him get that puppy above 50.

You've hit the nail on the head.

Phenostar

I think when it comes to teenagers driving, the more you can annoy the crap out of them the better. But if it was my own car, there is no way I could drive with all those things going off all the time. It's ok to have the belt buckle alarm but that's about it.

RE-L

I see Ford has also been reading Predictably Irrational too....

This seems great (in theory) but come on, how many parents are gonna 1)Know about this feature and 2) Actually use it.

Bauer22

Yay! More useless gimmicks!

ripfire

For $50 I'll sell you a hacked key, just like the one your momma uses.

whatnot22

F that.
I can see a speed limiter or something, but the rest of that borders on obnoxious.

med

Sometimes you need acceleration to escape from a dangerous situation (like between trucks that don't see you on the NJ Turnpike, for example). If the kid needs 81 mph and you've limited him/her to 80, BAM, you've killed your kid. Way to go, control freak.

stryder100

The rest is surely crap, but the more seatbelt beeping the better.

For some reason, my wife is completely able to tune out:
"Put on your seatbelt. Put on your seatbelt. Put on your seatbelt."

But 2 seconds of the car beeping at her? *sigh* Fine! *click*

92BuickLeSabre

Don't all cars already ding incessantly if you don't buckle your seatbelt nowadays? Unless you disable it, which is ridiculously complicated (and sometimes even impossible) on most cars.

As for limiting the speed to 80... 80? Really? You wanna limit your kid's speed, give him a 1972 Gremlin. Let's see him get that puppy above 50.

bobman1235

All of these things sound optional.

Since the article is written from the first person perspective... do you still borrow your mom's car?

If not, this probably shouldn't apply to you.

akacrash

Oh and here I thought it was the Ford cars thar ruined driving..

Jrsy is the dude, playing the dude, disguised as another dude

I didn't think they could invent something more annoying than learning to drive from my mom. Although, beeps are far less stressful than her incessant gasps at every move.

Margatron

@Margatron: Why not just put on your seat belt, maintain the speed limit that your parents decided you should have, and keep the stereo at a reasonable level. Or, you know, you could just buy your own car rather than live on their handouts.

rjp

@bobman1235: The idea isn't to keep people going slowly. It is to keep inexperienced drivers from excessively speeding. It also allows parents to let their kids use a modern car with modern safety features (I am talking airbags and crumple zones) rather than giving them a '72 Gremlin for them to get major head injuries in when they DO get into an accident.

rjp

but if you can't hit 88 mph, how are you going to generate the 1.21 jiggawatts of power necessary to break the space time continuum?

ned flanders

@stryder100: The situations where exceeding 80 MPH will avoid an accident are greatly outweighed by the situations where exceeding 80 MPH will cause an accident, especially when a teen is behind the wheel.

rjp

finally ... i hate loud music in passing-by cars... by teenage assholes...

KoRnholio8

@stryder100: And you say that like it's a bad thing.

Jrsy is the dude, playing the dude, disguised as another dude

Ha! I've had this system in every car I've owned for the last 5+ years. It's a brand new technology called "my wife".

MURPHtheSURF5

Generally I'm not in favor of technological solutions to social problems... but in this case, I think it's brilliant. Speaking as a 40 year old man who was once a very irresponsible teen driver, I say teenagers should not be allowed to drive at all. If you must let them on the streets, however, governing their speed and stereo volume sounds like an ideal way to take the joy out of the ride. Of course, if you're a kid and you're driving a Ford Lump, you probably don't need any more humiliation or incentive to not get noticed on the roads.

inkswitch

@Phenostar:

I think the Pacer would be a much better car.

Give 'em a 8 track of the Bee Gee's "Stayin' Alive" and two 50 cent pieces.

That'll keep those hormone driven bastards busy all night.

Parapraxis

honestly, unless the kid is on their own insurance, and the car is in their name - i love this option. Of course, the alternative is to act responsibly, don't do stupid things and otherwise act like an adult, and maybe they won't even have to contemplate this option.

My parents never would have seen a need to do this for me, and I hope I don't with my kids. I bought my car (which couldn't break 80) and i paid for my insurance, so it woudn't have mattered.

But so many kids "go south" that, for liability reasons, if one of my kids ended up a loser, i'd have no issue putting this on a car that i owned that they were allowed to drive.

the_other_steve_jobs

Wow. I suspect teen suicide rates rise with the implementation of this system.

Boba.Fett

On the other hand, all of these features would be considerably less annoying to a teenager than reminding him "When I was your age, I didn't have a car."

WB

@Bauer22:
Additionally, how many can figure out how to turn it on without asking for help from their kids anyway?

EngSellOut

Someone will find a way to jailbreak it soon.

Earthslide

um, isn't driving a ford of any kind "an infuriatingly annoying ordeal"?

nutbastard

@MasterYong: Tell snowflake to hit the brake and the Yakuza sedan will fly past. Then Snowflake is behind the Yakuza. Now it is the Yakuza who will face their impending Snowflake-related doom.

Rand

setting a max speed is really silly. i think going 50 down the suburbs is MORE dangerous than 80 on a clear freeway. the better one are those GPS solutions that email the parent when ever the car exceeds the speed limit.

ryusen

I like it! I'd SO put it on my car if I had a teenager... or a car. -_-;

Zaxxon Q Blaque

@ViperBorg: Actually, no. I just believe that a parent buying a car and allowing a kid to drive it should follow the rules of the parent, and the limits placed on this system aren't so low to be annoying.

Seat belt warning going off every minute? Put on your seat belt. The speed limit beeps probably have hysteresis circuitry built in to keep it from going off every time your speed oscillates about the limit. The speed limiter is at a perfectly reasonable level, and I would assume the the stereo limit is also still loud enough to cause hearing damage in the car.

They are going with a very safe set of limits, and all the teaching from parents in the world won't stop kids from being kids. This just keeps them out of the obscene ranges of being kids (driving at 100 MPH down the highway without seat belts on with the stereo blasting).

Besides, this isn't being forced upon anyone by Ford. A minor firmware update in the ECU and the production of a second type of key for the car, and it is all software from there. The parent can give the kid a normal key if they believe in the ultimate freedom.

rjp

@stryder100: If driving the family roadster, unless its a Porsche of similar ilk you would probably be better served by slightly pressing on the brake than hitting the gas allowing the trucks to blitz past you on either side.

Rand

Sounds like a dangerous gadget to me!

What happens when my little snowflake is driving along, minding his/her business when WHAMMO! Out of nowhere a Yakuza Sedan tries to push him/her off the road? What if I have the speedo set at 80 MPH and my little snowflake cannot escape their impending Yakuza-related doom?

Oh noes...

MasterYong

@MURPHtheSURF5: Pwned.

ViperBorg

@bobman1235: Unless you disable it, which is ridiculously complicated (and sometimes even impossible) on most cars.

Actually, it was frighteningly easy on my Dodge Caliber. And the instructions were very clearly written out in the manual.

ViperBorg

@rjp: Republican by chance?

Go Obama.

Back on topic: I'd find that damn speaker making that bing, rip it out, then go back to driving.

Now what to do about that stereo?

ViperBorg

I think this idea is awesome. Any time you park your car long term or leave it with a valet you can also program it to do the same! This way your car will not be involved in a high speed chase, or get your speakers blown out from some valet trying out your system on his dinner break.

Novel idea Ford! Finally a tech I can wrap my telephone pole around.

Grifter

@MURPHtheSURF5: HAHAHA

Polybius

They should disable the stereo until the seatbelt is clicked in. No safety, no drivee...

heyitstodd

@ned flanders: Plutonium generated the necessary energy, or Mr. Fusion, or... A bolt of lightning.

It's the combination of 88 mph + the energy needed to fold time.

Lite

@venomous_duck41: I'm pretty sure that one could fit all kinds of obnoxious annoying passengers in the bed of said pickup.

Lite

@Boba.Fett: Well only because any teenage traffic fatality in this car could easily be chalked up as suicide from all the dinging and soft music.

Jkoenig96

If you can't trust your kids, you can't trust your kids. No new car gizmo will fix that.

s0crates82

@92BuickLeSabre: I think Seatbelts should be called "DPDs" Darwin Prevention Devices. Sure, there may be times at which not wearing your seatbelt will save you, but those chances are less than those of a seatbelt saving you.

The scarier part being that most accidents occur withing a few miles of your home. Isn't that when you really should be wearing such a device?

Then again I had a semi try to merge me with a telephone pole this morning. Maybe it was telling me to call my mother?

Lite

Sheesh! Let's just keep our kids in a protective bubble (ala "The Boy In The Bubble" starring John Travolta) until they're old enough to protect themselves. Let's make that the law! March on Washington!

EricAlder

Don't you have to get back to the front porch so you can yell at the kids to stay off your lawn?

EricAlder

@Rand: exactly. Even on sometime like a motorcyle with an insane power to weight ratio, brakes will normally get you out of a bad situation quicker than the gas pedal will. Plus when something still goes wrong, it will go wrong at a lower speed than a higher one.

1roll20s

@Saboth: Bah, I can't hear that beep unless I'm listening very carefully for it. It goes off at 8500 RPM and at that point, the engine actually makes quite a bit of noise. It's only usable when the windows are up...I'm trying to figure out a good way to rig up a shift light in one of the vents.

jamesuschrist

Even when you cap the speed limit to 80MPH then it is still possible to get a ticket
The best system has not a pre-fixed limit
but is more variable nonetheless still most of those ideas are good ideas

TBM-Fan

I hate FORD and this is coming from a Michigan man; but these features are awesome because my hate for teenagers is even more powerful...

shalegac

@stryder100: This is a true story, set in Cold War Germany.

A group of Army APCs are returning from an exercise on the Autobahn. They're motoring along at 35 mph, and everyone, including the Beetles, is zipping past them.
Their exit appears, so the APCs turn of. The light at the bottom of the ramp is about to turn red, so they brake. A guy on a motorcycle blows past them, making it past the red light. He tootles along behind a car doing speed limit for a few yards, gets bored, and zips out into the oncoming lane to pass the stack of cars in front of him.
He sees an oncoming car and piles on the accelerator in an attempt to make the gap. He doesn't.
The motorcyclist goes through the first car's windshield, its rear window, the next car's windshield, its rear window, the third car's windshield, its rear window, the fourth car's windshield and its rear window, coming to a rest in a bloody pulp most of the way through the windshield of the fifth car.
The APCs see all this as they motor on past at 35.

Brakes would have been better.

kanon

Ahh, count me as another person glad to have bought Japanese. Honda FTW. Count on US car makers to sell you the responsibility-free American Family lifestyle.

Seriously, what the fuck. Treat your children like the responsible individuals they're supposed to grow up to be, not the babied, immature irresponsible retards they inevitably will become as you treat them as such.

heh "I say teenagers should not be allowed to drive at all" .. I disagree with that completely. I say, people who drive like idiots, should simply be forfeit from usual rights and be allowed to have their asses kicked by the other drivers whose lives they endanger. Actually, I'm saying this out of spite, and it's not spite towards teenagers - in fact more often I find it's older-aged women who end up nearly killing me with extremely dangerous moves or simply NOT looking. I had to slam on the brakes and blare the horn at a woman just yesterday who ran a stop sign (2-way stop, I had right of way - good thing I feather the brake pedal when approaching this specific intersection right by my house every time). She DIDN'T EVEN TURN HER HEAD. Clueless, oblivious freaking idiots like this are the big problem on the roads in my city. I wish I could write traffic violation tickets so these people would be indebted for the next hundred years as a result of their idiocy.

amatecha

Does it ever occur to anyone that children shouldn't be driving? Is that *really* such a ridiculous notion in today's society? I mean...really?

Lordstrom

Teenagers, either you know one or have been one, are CrAzY! And that is a good thing. But if you are fitting the bill and care about your kids safety you want them to at least drive at a reasonable speed. If the max speed of your state is 55 and you can set it at 60 because your pimple faced kid has got his 1st speeding ticket at 17 and you know he hasn't "learned his lesson yet" then this works for me. Better than driving his sorry butt all over the place.

I can tell most of the writers here don't really have kids or are kids themselves. Good parenting only goes so far. The kid can also choose not to drive a car that limits their speed... then you would wonder if they choose not to then there must be a speeding issue.

Nuff said!

Grifter

@bobman1235:
That won't work.
I regularly had my 72 Gremlin above 100.

With enough cases of beer in it that it bottomed out every time I hit a dip in the road.

RayDelMundo

@Lordstrom: Although I agree with you that 10 year olds shouldn't be out club racing at 2 in the morning, I don't see any reason why 17 and above couldn't start driving. Of course, I do believe that they should start of with "trainer" cars like what bombman said with 72 gremlin or similar and work their way up instead of getting a brand new IS350 and crashing it a month later.

ripfire

@Lordstrom: No it's not ridiculous, it could even save lives, but that would be in a perfect world!
Before being behind a wheel everyone should see what is it to drive beyond speed limits(WARNING:it's extremely nasty):

[www.charonboat.com]

totolobo

@bobman1235: making 80 the limit would just be counter-productive. That's already over the speed limit in most places and no kid needs to be driving that fast, especially when he's probably txting too

analyticalmind84

@Lordstrom: Depends on the age. I actually think that, rather than age limits (besides the obvious ones - if your feet can't reach the brakes or you aren't at least a head above the steering wheel, why would you try to drive?), we need IQ limits or something similar. Perhaps a mandatory camera in the car that automatically shuts off when the car stops moving (privacy), but gives a readout of your speed, etc.? It could send you a ticket if you go over the limit, text while driving, etc.

But my main proposal is this: That's what Darwin Awards are for. Sure, crashes many times end up hurting innocent people, and yeah, it sucks. But when you crash into a pole, or any stationary object, or even a car with your speakers blaring, your car going double the speed limit (exaggeration, but still), texting, talking to a friend, and drunk, well...you deserve your ticket, medical bill, and possible one-way ticket to the Darwin Awards...or at least the pearly gates (or other areas...). And if you don't die, well, bet you won't do it again, will you?

~Trexxen

Trexxen

Wow, this is some extremely stupid shit

HEY PARENTS
IF YOU DON'T TRUST YOUR CHILD TO ACT RESPONSIBLY WHEN THEY GET BEHIND THE WHEEL OF A NEARLY 3500-4K POUND VEHICLE, TRAVELLING IN EXCESS OF 10 MPH, AND THEREFORE ABLE TO FUCKING KILL SOMEONE

DON'T FUCKING LET THEM DRIVE

MK

YOU'RE WHAT'S WRONG WITH AMERICA.

ok that's it

nachobel

@stryder100: If immature drivers wouldn't exagerate, we wouldn't need those devices in the first place.

Sadly, not only some teenagers are immature, some adults are too.

m-p{3}

You forgot to say that as an added bonus your child will hate you forever!

DaSmith

@Lite: My parents' solution was to let me drive a 1988 Ford Festiva with a clutch so worn that any kind of real acceleration would cause it to slip. Although my brother and I could fit about five people int hat car, we couldn't go up a decent hill with mroe than two people, because of that damn clutch plate. I can remember mroe than one occasion where we literally had to drop people off at the bottom of a hill, drive one person to the top, make them get out while we went back down to pick the others up one at a time like a ferry, because we couldn't go up the hill with more than two people in the car.

Despite all the idiosyncrasies of that car, or maybe even because of them, we actually loved that thing. It was so shitty it was like a badge of honor.

All kids need to start out with a car like this, to teach them humility, and help them appreciate a nicer car later in life.

closhedbb

... Also, whether you borrow your mom's car or not, driving "about the 55 limit" should - legally - never include going above 55. (Because that would be called exceeding the speed limit and is illegal.) So if you drove with respect for your Law you'd never hear the beep until you got to open roads. And if you don't drive with respect for your Law, what are you doing on the road? "Everyone else is doing it" is no excuse. Take some personal responsibility and a lot of today's ills, including global warming, might be reduced or averted.

BettinaSukari

@MURPHtheSURF5: The difference is that your parents can't disable your wife.

I think.

I hope?

Killjoy

Hopefully it's not an ALL OR NOTHING kind of feature. I would want to keep my kid safe and not annoy the crap out of him/her. Max the top end and keep the volume down. Leave everything else alone.

I know all the crap I pulled when I was younger and I'm suprised I'm alive today! I chaulk that up to nothing but LUCK.

JEmlay

@Killjoy: That certainly didn't stop them from trying...and vice versa!

MURPHtheSURF5

Potential phone call from your kid:
"MOM/DAD the drug dealer we just bought meth from thinks we stole an 8-ball of his product while we were at his crib and we need to you unlock the speed governor so we can get away from him, his gun, AND his faster car!!!!"

axiomatic

No, the Focus itself will make you want to drive properly, or else them tires will send your ass to your grave.

michaelleung

If you want to further alienate your kids with distrust, and shelter them even further from their lives. And then, if you want your children to see a therapist for the rest of their lives with regard to "Why you - the parent - replaced the simple conversation and the value of trust, regard for others, etc. with a dumb 80mph limiter". And if you really just want to give up being a parent, and simply give the job to Ford and their awesome marketing dept, that obviously know more about your kids than you do.

THIS IS THE WAY TO DO IT!

p.s. You'll also teach your kids to buckle the seatbelt behind the seat (as some sort of retarded puberty rebellion), and you'll get your car driven through ditches to show you that 80mph is plenty enough to mess up your car (also, as some sort of rebellion to your lack of desire to communicate with your kids)

Or you could talk to your kids. But no, just get the 80mph limiter, MUCH EASIER

Pretolo