Mobile and Secure.Com

The BBC recently reported that a UK company has created a biometric gadget to prevent car theft. The video shows a small fingerprint pad near the steering wheel which is used to start the car.

I have this love hate relationship with technology and cars. I was in a 3 year old Ford recently that was happily moving along at about 50mph, when it suddenly seemed to lose all power and I had to pull over. It turned out that a particular sensor had stopped working and the cars CPU interpreted this as serious fault and therefore as per its programming, limited the speed to 18mph.

My folks MPV recently developed a fault which could have been fatal while they were driving in the fast lane of a motorway. The MPVs ECU developed a fault and turned off the engine completely. Luckily the rest of the car electronics kept on working and they were able to move across all lanes of the motorway and come to a complete stop safely on the hard shoulder.

Although I love technology, I do think there is a time and place for it, and unless it’s an assisted system, such as antilock brakes, or in-car entertainment, I don’t think it should be in my car. When it comes to cars I like my classics. No chips, no fancy ECU or any other technological enhancement is present in my daily drive. When it comes to security I can rely on the old mechanical methods, such as removing the rotor arm, fitting a hidden fuel cut-off switch, or fitting a big-ass steering wheel lock. It might be a minor hassle enabling my security devices, but at least I know that as I’m driving down the motorway, that a chip in my car isn’t going to suddenly decide that it needs to reboot.

I remember watching Tom Cruise’s ’War of the Worlds’ where at the start of the film, the EMP had killed all the cars that were on the roads. I thought as I watched that scene that that wouldn‘t happen to my car, apart from my it-works-if-you-don’t-go-over-a-bump radio, nothing in my car has a chip in it.

Time will tell if biometric readers in cars are a good idea. Me, I’m sticking to my chip-free classic.