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March 14, 2016

The Indefensible Position - Smart Keys Are Bad

I have to give the Washington Post credit for not simply dismissing the laughable claims by some advocates that electronic car keys are not worth the hassle. The biggest arguments? People lose them at a great cost for replacement and that thieves find other ways to steal cars. Ok, both points are in fact trueish. Replacing a powered key is going to cost money. Simple answer? DONT LOSE YOUR STUPID KEYS. Are we as Americans so lazy that we now don't want to be trusted with expensive things and that when we lose them, its somehow someone else's fault? That reasoning is why Europeans laugh at us. Constantly. That and the fact that nearly 25% of our population is clinically obese. And we start wars we had no right to start. And we consume more resources per person than any other country by a wide margin and... well you get the picture.

The second argument, that thieves will steal the car anyway is equally lame. There are levels of security, it's not a binary situation. Nothing is theft proof. Of someone wanted to, really wanted to, they could steal my house. They could, foundation and all. It would just take a lot of effort. The same goes for cars. The harder it is to steal the less likely it is to get stolen. In the 70's cars had those great door locks that anyone with a coat hanger and an extra 20 seconds could pop open. Inside the car, a simple slide hammer (body panel tool, look it up, its neat) can be used to pull out the lock from the steering column and the car can be started with a simple screw driver. Some GM cars were so bad that you didn't even need the slide hammer, smashing the left side of the column would expose the other side of the ignition lock workings and the car could be started by pushing a slide-arm. So in this age of electronic locks and better security, older methods of car theft are obsolete. Yes, people can back up a flat bed to a car and take it. That requires having a flat bed, not something the local hooligan is going to have.

In the end, the position held by people the WP spoke to is downright odd. We must not absolve ourselves of the responsibility to take care of our belongings while at the same time insisting that measures taken to assist in that end are rejected. Don't lose your keys, keep a spare somewhere it can be found, try to to submerge your car, if it is under water don't complain incredulously when it doesn't start and that new parts are somewhat expensive. If you cant afford to fix a Mercedes, don't own one. Lets remember the simple rule our parents tried, apparently in vein, to teach us, take care of your belongings or they will get stolen of broken.

Posted by Lionel Felix at March 14, 2016 07:12 AM

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