Did You Leave Your Car Running?

Will your car kill as you sleep tonight? People are leaving their cars running in their garages and then dying from carbon monoxide poisoning as they sleep. This is a mistake anyone could make, including you or me.

But how can someone leave their car running? I think I have an idea, even though I’ve not yet left my car running. Personally, I’m never sure if I locked my car. Sometimes as I walk away, I push the button multiple times to make sure it is locked. But I’m always sure I turned my car off.

Why am I sure that my cars are turned off? Because we only have old cars in my family. Cars with keys. I have to put the key in the ignition. Then I turn the key to start the car. I also turn the car off by using the key. And I need the key to lock the car when I leave.

Our cars remind me to turn them off. The cars also make loud noises if I open the driver’s door while the car is running. My car doesn’t want to keep running if I leave. So it is pretty hard for me to leave my car running when I walk away. I can’t even leave the lights on. If I leave the lights on, then my car will also make loud noises. My car is designed to stop me from making these mistakes. For these issues of turning off the lights and the engine, my cars are thoughtfully designed.

Apparently, turning off new cars isn’t as simple. With new cars, you don’t really have a key. You instead have a key fob that allows your car to know when you are nearby. That key fob can be in your pocket or purse. If you have that fob with you, then you push a button to start and stop the car. Do you have one of these cars? If you have a new car, I’m curious. Have you ever walked away and left your car running?

How is it possible to forget to turn off your car? Design errors. You can walk away from these new cars with the key fob in your pocket. But unlike my old car, your fancy new car may not make noises if you do that. Maybe it doesn’t want to disturb you. The engines on these new cars are relatively quiet as well. Thus, people really are leaving their cars running. You can park your car in your garage, get out with the key fob, shut the garage door, and walk inside. You can do all of this without turning off the car. The New York Times recently published an investigation detailing several deaths and injuries because people left their cars running in their garages. Death by bad design.

This also highlights a basic cognitive failure. The difference between doing something and thinking about doing something seems like it should be obvious. But making this distinction can frequently be difficult. Marcia Johnson and her colleagues have referred to this distinction as reality monitoring (Johnson & Raye, 1981; Johnson, Raye, Foley, & Foley, 1981). You track whether or not you have done something.

Did I already tell you something or did I just plan to tell you? This failure to appropriately engage in reality monitoring means that I frequently tell people the same story multiple times.

Did I send that email or simply think about sending it? This failure means that I sometimes forget to send emails because I thought I already did it (and sometimes I might send an email a second time).

Did I lock my door? This is hard for me. As I leave my car, or walk away from my office, I am already thinking about the thing I have to do next. With my thoughts someplace else, I am not focused on the current moment. I don’t attend to locking my car or office. As an absent-minded professor, this is simply an occupational hazard.

But I have never made the mistake of leaving my car running. Oh, I would if I had one of these fancy new cars. I could easily get out and not notice it was still running. I definitely could do that.

That’s why I think this is a design flaw. Old cars kept you from doing this. If you opened the driver’s door while the car was still running, the car made a series of loud noises Completely annoying. So loud and annoying that even as absent-minded as I am, I have never left the car running. Additionally, you can’t lock the car without first turning it off and taking the key with you.

There is no reason for these carbon monoxide poisoning deaths to occur. These reflect fundamental design errors. Car manufacturers should pay attention to the users when designing the machines. Why don’t the car makers return to the old systems? Even without keys, they could still have the car make loud noises if you and the key fob get a certain distance away. The car could still make a loud noise if you open the driver’s door with the engine running. The car could also turn off if the key fob is a certain distance away. Simple fixes.

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But simple fixes are needed when people are fallible. We can walk away without thinking about or noticing if we turned off the car. We need the reminders.