Chevrolet will offer parents an uncanny level of oversight when they need to lend the family ride to their kids with its NSA inspired spying feature that will be installed in its upcoming Malibu.
The system has been dubbed as Teen Driver and will be launched on the bow-tie brand’s latest mid-sized sedan. The sedan which itself bows at the New York auto show 2015, will let parents set speed alerts, receive vehicle reports and even limit audio volume. Chevrolet believes “parents could use it as a teaching tool with their kids—they can discuss and reinforce safe driving habits.”
Just like Ford’s current and previous MyKey System, Teen Driver allows parents a Jason Bourne complicated program speed warning that will alert them as soon as their kid exceed the pre-set velocity, which can be set between 40 to 75MPH. Parents can also set sound volume limits and pull customizable reports like distance traveled, highest speed achieved, exceeded pre-set speed warnings, anti-lock brake events, stability-control occasions, auto-breaking events and forward-collision warnings on vehicles that are equipped with those systems.
It is possible that teens simply shut off traction control, stability control and other such features, but the system’s PIN-protected menu gives parents the edge over their kids regarding which features can be deactivated and which cannot be.
This way, parents can enjoy full control over the activation of several features like daytime running lights, forward-collision warning, blind-spot monitoring, stability control, automatic braking, rear cross traffic control and traction control.
The beneficial aspect of this system is that parents can inquire kids about why he needed to probe the family ride’s top speed and test its collision warning feature repeatedly. Conversely, the reports with the information contained within them can become a video-game like “achievement” field for kids.
On a critical note, Teen Driver doesn’t address the most important and disturbing trend among young drivers, distraction caused by mobile devices.
The in-car-device-muting technology is not yet ready for being used. If we zap back to our teen kids at this time frame, we will definitely exhibit some of the bad driving behaviors that Teen Driver intends to curb such as speed and drifting. However, kids nowadays are interested in checking SnapChat and/or texting their buddies instead of speeding around as if they are participating in a Formula1 race.
Source: Popular Mechanics