Death by car exhaust

[Malcom Mal Reynolds]

saw a news story about the danger of keyless ignitions, seems a small subset of the drivers often forget to actually hit the start/stop button to actually turn the car off. One woman said that this happened to her and she woke up to her kids screaming headache, deciding to take the kid to the ER she opened the garage door and was overwhelmed by the fumes after having left the car run for 5 hours.

Aside from the fact that this indicates a pretty bad problem with isolating the garage from the house properly or that in five hours she never heard the car running, the real question is: could a car run for 5 hours in a "sealed" garage?

I would expect the car might overheat or run out of oxygen. So, how long could you expect a car to run in a "sealed" garage?

[Micky]

Sounds like something I would do.

No one died in this case, right?

I don't think they are really sealed. Cracks all around the garage door. Ventilation in the attic space above the garage. That it ran for 5 hours hints at that.

I'll admit that CO2 is heavier than O2, so maybe that is a factor. Maybe the room will tend to fill from the floor up with CO2, minus what leaks out past the doors.

CO is lighter than O2 but not much and cars don't make much CO anymore.

I don't think it will overheat when idling. It must generate 20 times as much heat at 60MPH. Cars use very little gas when idling.

[philo]

Tragic...and one reason I would never want an attached garage.

Heck, I don't even have a garage at all.

[gfretwell]

The real question is why the software allows the car to run when you take the fob away? It should at least be a setup option in the DIC.

[gfretwell]

I have a garage but there is never a car in it. That is my shop. We wanted to buy the foreclosure next door for my shop so my wife could put he car in the garage but it went for more than I was willing to pay. The garage is detached.

[Gordon Shumway]

No, no, no. The problem here is stupidity. I've always thought stupid should be painful, but unfortunately it was only painful for her offspring.

No matter how idiot-proof one makes something there will always be a higher grade of idiot to overcome the design.

[makolber]

keys were pretty much idiot proof

the "improved" design where you don't need a key, not so much

[Stormin Mormon]

Amazing, the things people do now days. Did this used to happen, back when?

[Stormin Mormon]

I read that years ago, people would leave the key in the switch, figuring no one would steal anything as large as a car. And, so, there was plenty of car theft. They put a warning ding on keys, to remind people not to leave the key in the switch. Crooks would stand around parking lots and listen for the warning ding when people stepped out. How true is this? Don't know.

- . Christopher A. Young learn more about Jesus .

. .

[Micky]

On second thought, the garage might not be sealed well to the outside, but I'd think it's sealed pretty well from the rest of the house. I wonder how the gas got into the bedroom. If she'd left the door to the garage open. people don't do that in the winter, do they, and she'd have heard the car maybe.

[DerbyDad03]

re: "but I'd think it's sealed pretty well from the rest of the house."

And why do you think that?

[Ed Pawlowski]

Garages are not that well sealed. Cars can idle for days if they have enough fuel.

Unless the house is all electric, they should have a CO detector. If you have fossil fuel heat and no CO detector you are negligent.

[Ed Pawlowski]

My car beeps as soon as you close a door if the fob is not in the car.

If the car stopped as soon as you removed the fob, it would be annoying as hell. OTOH, considering the sophistication of electronics in car, it would be easy to start a 5 or 10 minute countdown when the fob is removed from the car. That gives you enough time to rub back into the house when you forget your lunch. My remote start has a 10 minute time out.

[Ed Pawlowski]

A coworker left her car running with the key in it. Nine hours.

[Micky]

Because the ones I've seen have been sealed pretty well from the rest of the house.

[Gordon Shumway]

I remember back in the late fifties and early sixties GM, maybe other makes as well, had an ignition switch that the driver could remove the key with the engine still running. The driver could shut the engine off at a later time without the key. At that point no key was needed to start or stop the engine until such time that the owner wanted to "lock" the ignition. I didn't hear of any mass deaths because previous generations seemed to be more intelligent.

This is what happens when everyone gets a trophy. This is what happens when everyone is moved up to the next grade because of the "No one left behind" edict. This is what happens when liars and idiots are elected to public office!

[philo]

If I had a garage, it would probably be all filled with junk. As to my workshop, I have almost my entire basement setup for that.

Total of four workbenches.

[Retired]

Two airport stories from a Volvo dealership.

Guy goes to the airport, parks car, forgets to hit the off button. Comes back days later, car is out of gas with a dead battery.

Husband drives to airport with wife. Curbside, he leaves with fob in pocket. Wife drives to mall. Hits off button. You guess the rest.........

The dealer also tested the fact that car will not shut itself down if fob goes away. Drove fob 5 miles away. Car kept running in the service bay.

[trader_4]

If it ran for 5 hours, it would run until it ran out of gas.

[trader_4]

Maybe they leave the fob in the car, since the car is in the garage. Even then seems it would be a good idea to have the software start alerting the driver that the car is idling after say 15 mins and if there is no response in another 5, to shut it off. But then I suppose you'd have some people complaining because they want to run the car to use an inverter in a power failure or similar.