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You all know that when a vehicle's engine runs in a small space, there is a great risk of carbon monoxide poisoning. I propose that all new consumer-class vehicles come standardized with a detector on top that uses echo-location to determine the size of the space the car is in, and how long it can run
the engine before CO becomes a problem. Another reason this would be good is because some cars now have the ability to start their engines by themselves in order to charge a low battery.
For those who like to let their car warm up in the garage in the morning, a small exhaust fan could be mounted in the garage door behind the tailpipe. The car would send out a radio warning when starting, the exhaust fan would see it, come on, and then send a signal back to the car that it's safe to keep running.
Passenger compartment CO detector
http://www.halfbake...ent_20CO_20detector
This is probably simpler, more reliable, and covers more situations [beland, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 05 2004]
[link]
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(+) for preventing suicides. A CO detector linked to an ignition kill switch is quite bakeable. |
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What if it wasn't a suicide? |
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Why not just make it an audible alert with a readout of the level of CO shown on the dashboard? The trouble with linking a detector (of whatever kind) to the ignition is that, once the detector is tripped, your car is stuck in the garage, as the engine won't start. |
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"Peope that leave their car on in the garage are plane stupid" No comment |
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Jutta: For the solution to the tunnel problem, remember that I mentioned in the main idea about the exhaust sending a "go ahead" for the engine to run. I suppose tunnels and other places that were deemed safe would have similar transponders to let the cars run. Another solution would be to let the engine run no matter what if you were traveling above, say, 5 miles per hour. At that speed, the carbon monoxide would be swept away from the passenger compartment, not posing a threat. |
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