Doug Olenick

Ruining A Teenager’s Life
October 10, 2007

 OnStar’s newest feature for the car needs to be taken to the next level. 

While it’s great the wireless technology can help catch car thieves and return stolen property, I can think of an even better use: keeping teenagers alive. 

If OnStar can slow down a car then it can also regulate its top speed. A parent could punch in a code that tells the car it can only go at the posted speed limit, information that could be derived via GPS. No matter how hard the driver stomps down on the accelerator, the car will top out at 15 miles per hour in a school zone. 

Or the parent could set physical parameters on how far from home the car could travel. Say you give your child a 5-mile radius to drive. When the teen gets within half a mile of the boundary he or she is warned; when they cross over they are given, say, two minutes to turn around or else the car notifies the parent. If the teen parks and shuts off the car outside the area, then it won’t restart. 

The possibilities for this technology are almost endless. 

Granted, if this technology were available in 1981, it would have killed what little social life I had as a teenager, but hey that was a long time ago, and pretty soon, eight years to be exact, I’m going to have an unruly teenage driver in my house. So I’m a hypocrite, but at least I’ll know where my kid is at 10p.m.

Posted by Doug Olenick on October 10, 2007 | Comments (0)