Ford to introduce car performance limiting keys for teenagers

Kappa · 7 Oct 2008 at 18:22

But the thing is, its not for younger people to buy decent cars, its for their parents to buy them the car, or share their car with them, its a more effective marketing, 'peace of mind' tool than an effective crash/danger reducing device. God knows you dont need a heartbeat meter on a volvo key to know if someone/thing is in the car or not, but people still buy it. The 80mph isn't too bad, I think total control on performance to the speed limit or the GPS idea is going too far, its clear that a limit, albeit at 80mph is better than no limit at all. The music limit is a good idea too as (depending on actually how loud it is) can stop the music drowning out the noise of other cars/beeps etc.

L0rdMike · 7 Oct 2008 at 18:31

Dureth said:
A power limit would make more sense than this crap. How about a limit of 80bhp for everyone under 21? Make it similar to the 33bhp limit for bikers under 21.

33bhp on a bike is still good for 90mph and 80bhp in a car is still good for a fair bit too without being dangerously slow.

I had over 200bhp at 21 and had no problems with it.

[TW]Fox · 7 Oct 2008 at 19:04

I had over 200bhp at 22 and.. ah, yea, as you were then

Tom|Nbk · 7 Oct 2008 at 19:10

*Shudders at the thought of a 1.6 Focus being slower than it currently is

*

Fr0dders · 7 Oct 2008 at 21:19

jaybee said:
I don't see how it's that bad of an idea. Aimed at parents that are going to want to share the car with their kids. If it's so bad driving such a new car when you are young and have just passed (this will be the main target market) then one could always buy one's own car at one's expense.

its not a bad idea

its just a really poor implementation of the system at the moment that they might as well not have bothered with.

It is a good idea to restrict cetain things to certain users of the car (if the parent who supervises their car use requires)

but you just cant restrict anything worth restricting at the moment. It has the potential to be much better though, the technology for GPS based speed limiters and dynamic power allocation is there.

Housey · 7 Oct 2008 at 22:26

I had 45bhp in my road car and 300+bhp in a track car at 19. If it were the other way around I would not have been here now I suspect and I got banned in the 45bhp car in the end anyway! In my experience most yoot who like their cars drive like tossers (I speak as an experienced practitioner of said skills) more often than not so anything to restrict this pleasure is good in my book. I'd have hated it of course but I’m old now so na na ne na na!