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Transportation Software Technology

Some New Chevrolet Models Temporarily Won't Move Until Teen Drivers Buckle Up (npr.org) 199

Posted by BeauHD from the safety-first dept.
Chevrolet is introducing a feature, specifically for teen drivers, that will temporarily block the auto from shifting into gear if their seat belt isn't buckled. A message will alert the driver to buckle up in order to shift into gear. After 20 seconds, the vehicle will operate normally. NPR reports: The feature, which Chevrolet says is an industry first, will come standard in the 2020 models of the Traverse SUV, Malibu sedan and Colorado pickup truck. It will be part of the "Teen Driver" package, which can also be used to set speed alerts and a maximum speed, among other controls, and give parents "report cards" tracking a teen's driving behavior. Chevrolet explains how it works: "To use Teen Driver mode, a parent can enable the feature by creating a PIN in the Settings menu that allows them to register their teen's key fob. The Teen Driver settings are turned on only when a registered key fob is used to start the vehicle."
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Some New Chevrolet Models Temporarily Won't Move Until Teen Drivers Buckle Up More

Some New Chevrolet Models Temporarily Won't Move Until Teen Drivers Buckle Up

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  • Really? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by taiwanjohn ( 103839 ) on Tuesday May 21, 2019 @08:45PM (#58633556)

    Do people really still object to wearing seat belts? I thought this issue was settled back in the 70s. I just don't get why anyone would want to hurtle down the road without buckling up. Makes no sense to me at all.

    • People are generally stupid.
      When I was growing up it wasn't the law, (Yeah, I'm that old.) and I hated them when the law first came in. but I got used to seatbelts, and it has become such a habit, that the other day I went to move my car back about 5 feet in my driveway, and before I started moving the car I put my seatbelt on out of habit. :) Oh well, I didn't die, so the seatbelt must have worked. ;)

      • When I was growing up it wasn't the law, (Yeah, I'm that old.) and I hated them when the law first came in

        Me too for the first part but I was scared straight about wearing seatbelt before they were required. As an early teen I was in a private plane that ran off the end of the runway and over an embankment, ended up hanging upside down by my seatbelt with only minor bruises. After that I complained endlessly about my grandmother's car that didn't have shoulder belts to the point she wouldn't take me anywhere.

      • This is changing, with rear cameras and sonar-based range systems becoming common, but in a car that has neither, it’s much easier to get into and out of parallel parking spots without a belt on. You need to be able to move. My 2009 car doesn’t fire off the buzzer until you hit 10 mph16 km/h, so I don’t belt up for that sort of close maneuvering. I put it on when I’m pulling out into the road.

        • How in the hell does having a seatbelt on affect your ability to parallel park? Does your car not have mirrors?

          • How in the hell does having a seatbelt on affect your ability to parallel park? Does your car not have mirrors?

            Could be his seat belts are badly installed. Set belts should only stop you on sudden stops, and allow you to move (bend forward for example). But you're right, parallel parking should be easy just with mirrors.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Cederic ( 9623 )

            To be fair some cars just have horrendous rear visibility.
            https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

        • If your seat-belts prevent you form turning around and looking while parking, then they are installed wrong.

          They should only increase tension in case of emergency braking either because you hit the brakes, or because the FCAS system detected an obstacle and you didn't override it.
          It might something as low tech as blocking the belt's roller in case of sudden strong pull (what normally intertia causes to happen, only when the car is braking hard), or something much more high-tech like seatbelt pretensionner t

          • Seat belts that ratchet in place in non-collision conditions are extremely common. I drive a lot of rental cars and I see it in probably a fourth of them. It's usually the back seats though, not the driver.

    • Do people really still object to wearing seat belts? ... I just don't get why anyone would want to hurtle down the road without buckling up.

      I'm 56 and don't think I've ever driven (or ridden) without wearing a seat belt (lap+shoulder). It's an automatic behavior to buckle up.

      • Same here. I'll be 56 in a couple of months, and I've been in the habit ever since I was a kid (at least when riding in the front seat). Sitting in the back seat was different, of course. On long drives, my sister and I were free to ourselves, as long as we didn't annoy the folks. ;-)

    • I thought this issue was settled back in the 70s

      Where'd you come up with that notion? Cars without a full complements of seatbelts were still being manufactured well into the 80's.

      • Maybe in the back seat, but at least front-seat "lap belts" were a federal requirement since 1968. [wikipedia.org]

        • And most manufacturers implemented them before that. My 1960 Dodge dart had seatbelts. I think it even had them in back, but probably only three of them. (I had five people back there once, and all of them were sitting on the seat. Pretty skinny people, but that was a wide car.

    • "Hurtle down the road" without a seat belt? Hell no, I'm lazy, but I'm not stupid.
      Move a car parked on the street into the driveway or vice-versa without one? Yes. Every time.

    • Every new generation needs the education. It's not much of an issue among adults, but -- surprise -- every single year there's a new crop of drivers to educate, and many are resistant or forgetful.

  • why? (Score:1)

    by quenda ( 644621 )

    Why would teens not wear their seatbelts?
    Don't they have at least ten years of habit of putting a seat-belt on? I can't imagine my kids not using one.
    Or at least it is way down on the list of concerns, far behind texting.

    with less than 60% of high school students saying they always wear their seat belts as passengers.

    Ouch! So that is not just the low socio-economic inner-city/redneck demographics, but overlaps with new car buyers?
    Or is it just scare tactics by the auto industry?

  • Personally (Score:5, Interesting)

    by nehumanuscrede ( 624750 ) on Tuesday May 21, 2019 @09:42PM (#58633760)

    Since it is nigh impossible to get them to put their fucking phones down while driving, Chevrolet should introduce a new feature that when it detects the driver playing on their phone while in motion, it swerves off the road and into the nearest massive stationary object at high speed.

    The fewer idiots on the road playing on their phones means a safer commute for everyone else.

    • Re:Personally (Score:4, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 21, 2019 @10:30PM (#58633922)

      Tesla is way ahead of them on that feature

    • Re: Personally (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      The reason people are on their phones is because 99.99 percent of the time they can get away with it. If u really want to get rid of cell phone usage, just abolish speed limits. People naturally do what they need to do to survive. The fact that speeds are so ridiculously conservative all but ensures distracted driving. Nobody in Italy is driving with their heads in their phones because they drive like men. In the USA everyone drives like a big pussy. In fact pussiness is codified in all the seat belt

  • And this is ONLY directed at teens why? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by pgmrdlm ( 1642279 ) on Tuesday May 21, 2019 @10:03PM (#58633840) Journal
    Seriously, this should be directed at every driver. How many adult(what ever that means) drivers don't buckle up?

    • While this is an industry first that it doesn't switch into gear, does the car not have an alarm? My car will beep loudly and very annoyingly if I don't buckle up. If I ignore it for 20 seconds it beeps even louder, and at a higher and even more annoying pitch.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dargaud ( 518470 )
      Well, yesterday I pulled the car out of the garage and into the driveway so I could change the snow tires for the summer ones. It would have pissed me off if I'd had to put on the seatbelt just for that.

    • I don't want it.

      I have no objection to wearing a seat belt, but the few things that keep my car from going, the better. I like simple. Simple does not break so often, and is easier to fix.

  • What about emergencies? What about someone trying to escape from someone/something else?

    • Re:Not Thought Through (Score:5, Insightful)

      by EvilSS ( 557649 ) on Tuesday May 21, 2019 @10:58PM (#58634024)

      What about emergencies? What about someone trying to escape from someone/something else?

      On balance, this would still save more lives than will be lost running from movie villains.

      • Nahh, this is just a jobs program for service dealerships (for TSBs relating to intermittent unintended starter failure due to bad seatbelt sensor), lawyers (for crashes involving teenagers without seatbelts where they just sat on the seatbelts after they'd been latched in place and then started the car), and aftermarket devices (to bypass sensors so you can tell the car what state the seatbelt is in, independent of the actual state of the seatbelt.).

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by kackle ( 910159 )
        Yes, but each teen will have a choice, which affects their life; the woman running from an abusive spouse (etc.), doesn't.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by EvilSS ( 557649 )

          Yes, but each teen will have a choice, which affects their life; the woman running from an abusive spouse (etc.), doesn't.

          Didn't she have a choice though? I don't think women get assigned a mandatory spouse in the US anymore.

  • I had a 1974 Chevy Camaro that had a starter lockout if there was enough weight on either front seat and the seat belt wasn't used for that seat. Of course it was easy enough to unplug it under each seat because very few people wanted to wear a seat belt back then.

    This feature was government mandated for all 1974 vehicles. It was so popular with the public that it was revoked before the end of 1974. I'm not sure I would call this a new thing, or a first, but I suppose charging for it as a option is.

  • One more unnecessary feature. The harm/inconvenience done when it malfunctions will vastly exceed the rare benefit when it actually is working.

    • I mean, it's optional, so don't turn it on. And it probably uses the exact same solenoid lock that keeps you from shifting out of park unless you have your foot on the brake that's been on every GM car forever.

  • Nanny state. (Score:5, Funny)

    by thedarb ( 181754 ) on Tuesday May 21, 2019 @11:07PM (#58634044)

    How are you ever going to slow or curb overpopulation if you don't allow some people to kill themselves by being stupid? There is no Thanos to fix the problem.

  • Patented in the 1970s https://patents.google.com/pat... [google.com]

  • ... seatbelts.

    And I've *NEVER* seen a case where a teenage driver didn't strap in before moving the car.

    The bigger problem I think would be with teenage passengers more than the driver.

  • Great at first for encouraging your kids to buckle up.
    Sadly, there are a LOT of little bypass devices out there already.
    I have also seen a lot of cars where the seat-belt is simply left "done up" across the empty seat, and the driver just sits on it.

    All in all, a good idea that has potential. If it weren't for the bypass devices, I'd say it's well worth putting into ALL cars as mandatory. After all, it's the law, isn't it?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Cederic ( 9623 )

      I have a seatbelt buckle with no strap attached that lets me fool my stupid car into thinking the passenger side seatbelt is permanently fastened.

      It was the only way to get it to stop telling my bag to put its seatbelt on.

  • We had a car in the 1970s that had just such a feature. You couldn't start it unless the driver's seatbelt was buckled. Except there was an intermittent problem where, when it rained, the moisture after driving caused some kind of short. Then the car wouldn't restart whether the seatbelt were buckled or not. As you might imagine, this caused problems when it rained as you couldn't turn off the car if you wanted to go again any time soon. They never could track down the problem as it is hard to come up with
    • It only adds a 20 second delay when the seatbelt is not detected. You should probably let the engine warm up for 20 seconds before launching anyway. But it's a Chevy, so I'm sure it'll be 101% reliable.

  • You'd think everybody would wear seatbelts by now. A couple of years ago a famous young (but no teenager) Greek singer died while driving blind drunk. His car was one of those which complain when you don't have your seatbelt on... They would he had secured the seatbelt behind his back. So starting or not starting the car is moot, if someone wants to be an idiot and go for the Darwin award they'll find a way...

  • On the next model if a teen exceeds the speed limit by 5 MPH the car parks itself, locks them in the seatbelt and calls the cops.

  • They can remove the engine and the car will refuse to move... saving 100% in emissions

    I am not sure it's gonna help their sales... the people who already put it on dont need the feature and the people who need it will just buy a different car

  • No teen would ever use the same key fob as their parent's, right?

    Cars usually come with only 2 keys (sometimes with a 3rd which can't open the trunk). Are parents supposed to sacrifice one of their two keys so that only their teenager uses it? Or are they supposed to pay an extra $200 to get extra ones? I am sure this is the idea.

  • hardly new, decades old (Score:4, Informative)

    by iggymanz ( 596061 ) on Wednesday May 22, 2019 @11:22AM (#58636080)

    In 1974 in USA seatbelt interlock was mandatory by NHTSA, car wouldn't start if occupied front seat didn't have belt fastened. In that year time period afterwards, fatal deaths dropped 17%, how strange.

    People were annoyed they had to put on that pesky belt and when grocery bags and dogs triggered the system (had to keep seat cleared until car running). and petitioned Congress to have that evil thing removed.

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