Introduced in America in 2009, it arrives in New Zealand mid-year in the high-performance Fiesta ST. It can be programmed to give speed warnings and disable the stereo if the driver's seatbelt is not securely fastened.
Although, if you're letting your kids drive the ST you'd make sure the setting on My Key is for the car not to go above 50km and to have only an easy-listening radio station playing on its stereo.
Budding boy (and girl) racers won't be keen but Ford is banking on their parents being very keen. With a quarter of drivers crashing in the first six months of being licensed, they may be on to something.
"We didn't want to create a system that was so intrusive or controlling that young drivers refused to use it, though," says Andrew Johnson, supervisor at Ford's automotive safety office. "The magic of My Key is that it's flexible, so can be adjusted by the parent as their child proves they can be trusted as a responsible driver.
ACTIVE SAFETY
It's the scourge of the speeding motorist in the form of the police radar gun, but the invention best known for tracking aircraft is now set to keep your car on the road.
Radar-guided cruise control, which speeds up and slows down according to traffic flow, and automatic braking are already common in luxury cars such as the Mercedes E-Class and Audi A6. From 2014, new European regulations will mean that new cars will require autonomous emergency braking (AEB) to score a five-star safety rating. AEB uses radar, laser or a video sensors to detect an impending vehicle or pedestrian, explains Christophe Bastien, lecturer in vehicle safety at Coventry University.
It then warns you to apply the brakes or, if a collision looks likely, applies them automatically. Similar technology also powers lane departure warning systems, which help to keep you in your lane and trigger an alarm if a hazard moves into your blind spot as you change lanes.
This is the sort of kit that car designers describe as active safety, that, unlike passive measures such as air bags and crumple zones, is designed to prevent you having a crash in the first place.
Active technology really is the future of car technology, and its features will soon become the norm on all cars, says Bastien. The latest surveys suggest this could save as many as 2700 lives a year across Europe.
DRIVERLESS CARS
The so-called building-block technologies behind driverless cars have existed since Google started testing a self-drive car in 2005 and it was granted a Nevada driving licence in 2011. Now major car manufacturers are getting in on the action with Toyota and Audi unveiling self-drive technologies last month.
According to Brake, 95 per cent of all crashes are caused by driver error so, to eliminate this, Toyota and Audi test models are fitted with on-board radar and video cameras to monitor the road. Along with early models from Volvo, Mercedes and Ford, they still retain driver controls but can, the firms claim, operate in self-drive mode. The technology is still a long way from the car showroom but is advanced enough for Audi's model to be able to avoid collisions and even find a parking space and slot neatly into it without a driver at the wheel.
PEDESTRIAN PROTECTION
Historically, pedestrian safety has lagged behind passenger safety but, with increased EU regulation, car manufactures are having to think outside the box for pedestrian protection. In its latest hatchback, Volvo has taken the unusual step of introducing the world's first pedestrian airbag.
It has two functions, explains Thomas Broberg, a Volvo engineer who worked on the project. Firstly, it raises the bonnet to create distance [from the pedestrian] and, secondly, it cushions the impact around the hard parts of the area near the windscreen.
Available as standard on the new V40 model (for sale in New Zealand), the airbag is active at speeds between 15km/h and 50km/h at which most collisions with pedestrians occur. It uses seven radar and camera sensors to trigger a pyrotechnic release mechanism and deploy an airbag across the car's bonnet.
LIGHTWEIGHT CONSTRUCTION
In accidents, weight is a killer. Lightweight aluminium materials were once the preserve of accident-prone sports cars and have price tags to match, but the metal's use is increasingly common as manufacturers try to bring down the weight of their gadget-laden vehicles.
The new Range Rover is a prime example. It is the first SUV with an all-aluminium chassis, which saves nearly 420kg over traditional steel construction.
Weight is crucial in an accident, says Dr Mark White, chief technical specialist in body engineering at Land Rover. The trend in the automotive industry has been to take big cars and make them heavier and heavier with additional technology and safety equipment.
The problem with this is that you are bringing more energy into any crash. In layman's terms the damage caused in an accident equals the energy put in times the mass of the vehicle. We can't always reduce the energy or the speed the car is travelling at but, by using lighter metals, we can reduce the force of the impact and the damage caused.
-Independent
