laura@hoptoad.uucp (Laura Creighton) (08/01/86)
All you need to do is equip cars with a keypad. Then, before you can get your engine to turn over, have to type a random 14 digit number. Actually, I want a full keyboard so that I can have a map database in my car, never get lost, and use ascii access it. As long as I don't drive and play hack at the same time...:-) -- Laura Creighton ihnp4!hoptoad!laura utzoo!hoptoad!laura sun!hoptoad!laura toad@lll-crg.arpa
kubic@reed.UUCP (Jan Kubic) (08/02/86)
Ralph Nader and his gang tried to do something similar to the "keypad to start" idea. They had a federal statute passed to make car manufacturers install ignition cut-offs in the seat belt circuitry. If you were not buckled in, the engine would not start. This law was soon striken from the books when some women was assualted, raped, and beaten and was unable to escape because her car would not start - silly person, in all that hurry she forgot to buckle up! Good luck with trying to remember a *14 digit* number in that sort of situation! Jan Kubic CFI-AIME
mathes@mcnc.UUCP (Thomas N. Mathes) (08/05/86)
In article <935@hoptoad.uucp> laura@hoptoad.UUCP (Laura Creighton) writes: >All you need to do is equip cars with a keypad. Then, before you can >get your engine to turn over, have to type a random 14 digit number. >Actually, I want a full keyboard so that I can have a map database >in my car, never get lost, and use ascii access it. > >As long as I don't drive and play hack at the same time...:-) GM tried a concept like this, in the early 70's. A display would show a 7 digit number, and if you failed 3 times in entering the correct sequence, your car wouldn't start for 30 minutes. The public didn't go for it in their pre-marketing tests. This little episode shows that American car makers are still ahead of the rice-burner competition. Their advantage is in manufacturing; ours is getting better by leaps and bounds, though. A good friend who worked for the GM corporate R & D center told me that they discarded more ideas than the Japanese came up with. Our problem, he said, is that we don't take advantage of our own ingenuity. (This is an anti-bean counter flame): The only way that our manufacturing base can return is if we stop the dominance of the bean-counter (read financial analyist or accountant) in American manufacturing. They preach the bottom line too much, and don't give a damn about quality. Only when we rid ourselves of these types can we hope to be the number 1 economic power we once were. And by the way, a great Yankee designed and built car can blow the doors of ANY rice-burner. And believe me, there are a lot of great American cars out there. One more thing, have you seen the prices of a new Toyota Cressida? I'd rather have a Caddy and save the difference!! So much for those *cheap-to-keep* cars. FLAME-ON!!!
laura@hoptoad.uucp (Laura Creighton) (08/07/86)
You have to consider what is more likely -- getting raped, or getting killed or injured by a drunk driver. And also, what is worse. Getting raped is nothing to joke about, but when you are dead you are dead. I know more than five times as many people who have been involved in accidents with someone else who was drunk than have been raped. I've had one raped and murdered friend, but three friends killed by drunk drivers. What price are we paying in dead and injured friends, not to mention insurance rates and property damage in order to keep some people from being raped and possibly murdered? Is anyone keeping score? -- Laura Creighton ihnp4!hoptoad!laura utzoo!hoptoad!laura sun!hoptoad!laura toad@lll-crg.arpa