Ford spokesman Wes Sherwood told the Detroit News that Ford's research showed parents would be more likely to let teens use their vehicles with My Key. If it gets them the car more often, the number of teens objecting drops by nearly half. Of course, since a My Key crack will be available on the web about three minutes after the first one hits the showroom floor, we're pretty sure most teens aren't sweating the idea too much. In the meantime, the new feature seems like a smart way for Ford to score sales consideration points with the parents actually doing the car buying. Press release follows.

DEARBORN, Mich., Oct. 6, 2008 – Ford Motor Company is introducing an innovative new technology – called MyKey – designed to help parents encourage their teen-agers to drive safer and more fuel efficiently, and increase safety-belt usage.

Ford's MyKey feature – which debuts next year as standard equipment on the 2010 Focus coupe and will quickly become standard on many other Ford, Lincoln and Mercury models – allows owners to program a key that can limit the vehicle's top speed and audio volume. MyKey also encourages safety-belt usage, provides earlier low-fuel warnings and can be programmed to sound chimes at 45, 55 and 65 miles per hour.

"Ford not only offers industry-leading crash protection and crash avoidance systems, we also are committed to developing new technologies such as MyKey that encourage safer driving behavior," said Susan Cischke, Ford group vice president of Sustainability, Environment and Safety Engineering. "MyKey can help promote safer driving, particularly among teens, by encouraging seat belt use, limiting speed and reducing distractions."

MyKey is appealing to parents of teen drivers, including 75 percent who like the speed-limiting feature, 72 percent who like the more insistent safety-belt reminder, and 63 percent who like the audio limit feature, according to a recent Harris Interactive Survey conducted for Ford.

About 50 percent of those who would consider purchasing MyKey also said they would allow their children to use the family vehicle more often if it were equipped with the new technology. The added seat time can help teens build their driving skills in a more controlled setting, complementing graduated licensing laws that give young drivers more driving freedom as they get older.

More than half of parents surveyed worry that their teen-age children are driving at unsafe speeds, talking on hand-held cell phones or texting while driving, or otherwise driving distracted. More than a third of parents also are concerned that their teens do not always buckle their safety belts when driving.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), teens are more likely to take risks such as speeding – a contributing factor in 30 percent of all fatal crashes. Teens also are less likely to wear safety belts than older drivers.

Teens surveyed by Harris said they are largely open to MyKey if it means they will have more freedom to drive. Initially, 67 percent of teens polled said they wouldn't want MyKey features. However, if using MyKey would lead to greater driving privileges, only 36 percent would object to the technology.

"We've upgraded an existing, proven technology – the SecuriLock passive anti-theft system – with some simple software upgrades to develop a new unique feature that we believe will resonate with customers," said Jim Buczkowski, director, Electrical and Electronic Systems Engineering – the same team that developed SYNC in partnership with Microsoft. "We also developed MyKey's functions in such a way to quickly spread it across multiple vehicle lines, giving us the ability to go mass market in the spirit of other Ford innovations such as safety belts, stability control and SYNC."

Holding the key

The MyKey system allows the parent to program any key through the vehicle message center, which updates the SecuriLock™ passive anti-theft system. When the MyKey is inserted into the ignition, the system reads the transponder chip in the key and immediately identifies the MyKey code, which enables certain default driving modes, including:

* Persistent Ford Beltminder™ with audio mute. Ford's Beltminder system typically provides a six-second reminder chime every minute for five minutes. With MyKey, the Beltminder chime continues at the regular interval and the audio system is muted until the safety belt is buckled. A message center display "Buckle Up to Unmute Radio" also appears on the instrument cluster.

* Earlier low-fuel warning. Rather than a warning at 50 miles to empty, MyKey provides a warning at 75 miles to empty.

* If MyKey is in the ignition, features such as Park Aid and BLISTM (Blind Spot Information System) with Cross Traffic Alert cannot be deactivated.

Additional MyKey features that can be programmed through the vehicle's message center setup menu:

* Limited top speed of 80 mph
* Traction control system, that limits tire spin, cannot be deactivated
* Limited audio volume to 44 percent of total volume
* A speed alert chime at 45, 55 or 65 mph

Using MyKey to teach teens to avoid speeding can provide an added benefit – improved fuel economy. Ford research shows that driving 55 mph instead of 65 mph consumes 15 percent less fuel, and mastering other eco-driving habits such as avoiding jackrabbit starts and excessive idling can help improve fuel economy by more than 50 percent.

Safety is the key

MyKey is just one way that Ford is helping teens drive more safely. Ford Motor Company Fund's Driving Skills for Life (DSFL) program helps young motorists master four critical driving skills – hazard recognition, vehicle handling, space management, and speed management – that help address the majority of dangerous driving conditions. More than 3,000 teens have participated in DSFL ride-and-drive events. And more than 500,000 people have used the training course since 2003 on www.drivingskillsforlife.com.

[Ford via Detroit News]

If you perform a solid maneuver, the system will provide a green light, a mediocre maneuver will provide a yellow light and if it blinks red there is a good chance someone is recording you for a Youtube video, so hoon it up.

The purpose of the installed system is so a U.K. safety center will be able to collect "blind" test information for drivers in the Royal Navy, British Army and Royal Air Force. I'm sure bets will be placed prior to finding out which branch has the worst drivers.

Including this technology in vehicles reportedly reduced accidents by an average of 54 percent and lowered accident costs by 65 percent. Not bad. [News.com]

The identity of the original Stig was revealed to be former F1 driver Perry McCarthy when the black-suited Stig was "killed-off" of the show, tragically driving a Jaguar XJ-S off the flight deck of HMS Invincible. Since then, the identity of the current white-suited Stig has been a hot topic of speculation. Most agree The Stig is not merely one man; there are multiple men that have worn the the Stig mask. For instance, according to the Swedish tabloid newspaper Aftonbladet, Swedish snowmobiler Dan Lang wore the white suit during the Winter Olympic Special's snowmobile on a ski-jump stunt. Even friend of the show, stunt driver Russ Swift, said in an interview that The Stig is not played by just one person. Maybe the real question is, do we want to know who The Stig is? Ignorance is bliss, right?
[AutoTrader UK via AutoBlog]

The more educated you are in Poland, the more likely you are to drive a car. Approximately 65% of the drivers have better than a primary-school education. Most drivers are in their 30s (62%), with 44% of drivers in the 18-29 age bracket. We realize that adds up to 106% of drivers excluding people in their 40s or greater, but that's what it says. [TheNews.pl]

NBC's Today Show tells us this morning China's getting an extra 2,000 cars per day on city streets as the Socialist republic becomes more and more like the United States every day. One other problem they face similar to us? Nobody knows how to drive. As you'd expect it's causing 300 to 600 people being killed each day on the roadways of the world's most populous country. So what's the People's Republic to do? The thing we wish they'd mandate in Manhattan and here in some suburbs of Metro Detroit — mandatory driver's training. The requirement, along with increased enforcement of traffic violations is causing traffic deaths to drop a whole 10%. The effort, however, is only helping NBC's David Gregory 5% in his attempt to discern the differences between the People's Republic of China and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. – Ray Wert

Today Show [MSNBC]

Related:
Today Show Heads To Michigan To Cover...The New York Auto Show?; Toyota's As American As Apple Pie: So Sayeth the 'Today Show' [internal]