Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2021 October 1

= October 1 =

pushbutton ignition on cars
I rented a Nissan Altima (semi-luxobarge but the only car the agency had in stock) for a semi-emergency yesterday. It was my first time driving such a recent (post-2010 say) car afaik. It didn't have an ignition key, but just a remote. You'd use the remote to open the door, then press a button on the center console to start the motor. The weird thing is there didn't seem to be a timeout after using the remote: afaict, if you could get into the car at all, you could press the button and drive it away. That obviously seems like a huge security flaw. Maybe you could even start the motor by breaking into the car (obvs I didn't try that).

Does it really work like that? Is it really that silly? Do I miss something, like some kind of passive detection of the remote? Thanks. 2601:648:8202:350:0:0:0:1598 (talk) 15:48, 1 October 2021 (UTC)
 * The fob you used to unlock the door has to be close to the push button to start the car. There is a proximity sensor involved. 97.82.165.112 (talk) 16:18, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

If you drive away without the key fob, the car will stall after it goes out of range. DOR (HK) (talk) 21:17, 1 October 2021 (UTC)
 * I'm pretty sure that it won't. That would be a major safety risk. But it won't start without the key fob in the vicinity. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 22:48, 1 October 2021 (UTC)
 * You must have a different make and model than I do, and the risk is that the vehicle WOULD be able to be driven without the key. DOR (HK) (talk) 21:08, 2 October 2021 (UTC)
 * That is not a safety risk. It's arguably a security risk, but that is less relevant to public safety. The safety risk is that the car is being driven, and the driver suddenly loses control over it (e.g. drawing out of the parking bay onto the street and suddenly stopping in the path of oncoming traffic). All such systems I'm aware of inhibit the car from getting started without the key, but don't stop it in mid-operation. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 00:16, 3 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Use of a FOB relay to steal cars is real and is dependent on the fact that cars let you drive away without the FOB being present. You just can't turn the car off and restart it. So, you have to drive it all the way back to your garage where you can reprogram it to use a new FOB. 97.82.165.112 (talk) 15:33, 4 October 2021 (UTC)

A careful reading of my previous post will uncover the startling fact that nowhere does the word “safety” appear, whether related to risk or for any other reason. This is due to the astonishing but true fact that I was not actually writing about that particular type of risk. DOR (HK) (talk) 22:57, 5 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Then you should have more carefully explained what type of risk you were writing about (presumably, the risk that the car is stolen). In writing "the risk is...", you were implicitly referring back to the safety risk identified by the previous poster. You should have put something like "the risk, which is not a safety risk but is a security risk, is that..." --Viennese Waltz 07:12, 6 October 2021 (UTC)