Opposing Views – by Michael Allen
An elderly couple in Alexandra, New Zealand, almost died after thinking they were trapped in their new ”keyless” Mazda 3.
Brian and Mollieanne Smith spent almost 13 hours in their car unaware they could have left at any time.
The incident happened on Nov. 5 in the couple’s garage. The Smiths left their new car’s manual inside their home and the car’s remote control outside the vehicle, reports the Otago Daily Times.
Thinking they could not open the doors without the remote control, the couple tried honking their car horn and attempted to break a window using a car jack.
However, it was a local holiday, so fireworks drowned out their honking. The next day, the couple was freed by some neighbors.
Mollieanne was unconscious and Brian was having trouble breathing.
Mollieanne, who spent three days in a hospital, claims that ambulance workers told her that she and her husband could have died if they had spent another half hour in the car because the air was running out.
Brian thought the car salesman told them that the remote control was the only way to open the doors, noted the Daily Mail.
The Smiths have now decided to go public in an effort to educate older people about keyless cars.
”It’s not a design flaw with the car … what we have said to the network is, with new technologies, don’t forget to show customers how to use them in their entirety [and] how to override them,” Mazda New Zealand general manager Glenn Harris told the Otago Daily Times. “There is always a manual process to override them.”
Sources: Daily Mail, Otago Daily Times
Image Credit: Kickaffe
The poor old fools probably spent years learning how to program the VCR, just before everyone switched to DVD, and now they got trapped in a smart car that’s smarter than they are.
Technological advances aren’t for everyone, and it’s becoming impossible to live a simple life. These two probably have one of the last rotary phones in existence.
My but you are a condescending …….. (please fill in as appropriate)
Bless their hearts. Life can be a bit scary and confusing for the elderly who are not used to being thrust into all this new-fangled technology.
My girlfriend of 9 years my junior is always telling me I need to come into the 21st Century by ditching my flip phone and upgrading to a (computerized) iPhone or some such phone. I tell her “Why? It rings, I answer, and people can leave me a message just like my land line did.” What is wrong with that?
. . .
Did they have breed and have kids? Its one thing to not be able to figure something out, entirely different when you don’t even try. I have seen my drunk 60 year old neighbor actuate every button and lever in his truck cab trying to get his cargo light on, he finally got it and I closed his hood for him afterwards, but he tried and did not give up till he could show me what it was back there he wanted me to see.