So, Junior just got his license and you’re worried about how fast he’s going to be ripping around the neighborhood, huh? Well, Ford just may have the solution you’re looking for. They’re coming out with the new MyKey and it is aimed to help parents both monitor and limit certain areas of their children’s driving habits.
With MyKey, drivers won’t be able to go over 80 miles an hour, and a warning chime will go off at 45, 55 and 65 miles per hour. Kids won’t be able to turn on the radio until they are nice and safe and secure by fastening their seat belt. Even once they can turn the radio on, there isn’t much danger of them blasting it, since the volume is limited to 44 percent of the maximum allowed.
If the seatbelt isn’t put on, it will continue to emit a warning chime the entire time the car is being driven. You have a little bit better chance of not hearing the “I didn’t realize I was going to run out of gas excuse,” since the low-fuel chime gives them a warning when there is 75 miles remaining. There are even additional safety technologies built in like the inability to deactivate traction control and blind-spot detection. Most of these features can be turned on and off by the parents.
Jim Buczkowski, Ford’s director of electronic and electrical systems engineering said, “Our message to parents is, hey, we are providing you some conditions to give your new drivers that may allow you to feel a little more comfortable in giving them the car more often.” As for the reason they chose the 80 mph even though most states have a lower speed limit, Ford says that they wanted to leave a leeway in case of special circumstances. They felt placing it at 70 mph was cutting it too close.
According to Ford’s market research, 75 percent of parents like the idea of the MyKey, while an expected number of teens (67 percent) thought it was a bad idea. However, also according to their research, use of the MyKey makes parents more likely to let their teen drive their car and in that situation, the view of teens being against the key drops by half. Guess they figure it’s better to have a car even with limits than ride a bike. A Schwinn tends to look goofy trying to pick up a date.
The MyKey is set to come standard on the 2010 Focus, and will be optional on several of their other cars as well.