Is this a new thing? Because the article I linked to describing deaths or injuries from leaving the car running in the garage was from 2018. So perhaps the rules have changed?
My Nissan is a 2016 model, so it’s been around awhile.
Huh. My car turns off the electric pretty quickly if the engine isn’t on. Annoyingly so, really, since it means I run the engine more than needed when waiting to pick my kid up from school. Again, sounds like a failure of engineering that’s not really a fob thing.
I know my 2015 Sonata complained if you left with the key but I won’t pretend to know every car’s alert features c.2018. Multiple people in this thread mentioned their cars also alerting them though so I’m thinking it’s pretty standard.
Perhaps people were used to ignoring the car’s beeps and other noises?
I guess. My dashboard displays a bunch of info too but, if I decide to ignore the oil light because gawd look at all those lights and stuff, that’s a failure on me not the car. Same applies to “but the car is always dinging about something” so why would I listen to the warning about my keys. At some point you hit “can’t foolproof against a dedicated fool” territory.
I assume you mean you are pressing something or moving a stalk to put it in park. If so, I don’t think you even have to do that. I think unbuckling puts it into park. I know opening the door does. I still push the button on the stalk to put in park as well.
I used to travel extensively for my job, too, so I understand this issue. As a teen, I was also a valet car parker in an upscale country club – in and out of pretty much every kind of car imaginable.
I bought one of the early US model Toyota Priuses. The reviewers were crestfallen that you couldn’t see one or the other radio knobs because it was hidden by the rim of the steering wheel.
That’s a problem on the first hour of the first day of the ownership of the car. People grow accustomed to the idiosyncrasies of their car very quickly, even if they never grow to like this or that issue.
Most people don’t switch cars with the frequency that they change undergarments. You and I did 
I suspect so. I have a 2014 Mazda 3 and it gives me a short series of quick electronic chirps when I leave, but I wouldn’t call what it does a “ruckus.” It’s enough to remind you but not enough to piss off your neighbors. It stops, though, after maybe four phrases of three short beeps each. After that, it shuts up. So if you space out the first three seconds or so you leave your vehicle unattended, you can just not notice it.
I had that happen to me not for cars, but for toilets. At my previous job all the toilets had those motion sensors that that make it flush automatically as you walk away. So my brain got trained to “just pee and walk away” in all public restrooms. I’d be somewhere where you have to flush the toilet manually, walk over to the sink, realize that the toilet hadn’t flushed, and have to walk back over to the toilet and flush it.
Mazda, at least, apparently decided just a few short beeps wasn’t doing the job, because my 2019 MX-5 beeps continuously until you bring the key back (Or shut off the engine, I assume). You don’t even have to get that far from the car – I first discovered this by getting out and walking around to the trunk.
Nope. The fob was in my pocket and the car kept running.
Right, I’m saying I don’t know your car to know what kind of sound (if any) it makes if you exit with the key while the engine is running. Multiple people have said their car makes a racket about it. It sounds as though some older models may have been more subtle while newer cars might be more emphatic about it. While I thought my 2015 Sonata did a fine enough job of alerting me, my 2021 model is much more vocal about its objections.
Wait a minute…
Are those extolling the joy of physical keys telling me they don’t know of any cases of people doing the following during the glorious heyday of the perfect automobile (the peak which funnily enough seems to coincide with their own peak driving years):
Locking their key in the car- I did this multiple times with at least one of my cars that allowed one to push the lock on the door down and then close it and it would remain locked. I even did this at least twice when I got out of the car while it was running and absent mindedly closed the door behind me with the lock engaged.
Locking their key in the trunk- I went through a period when I seemed to do this with every other rental car (I would be loading or unloading luggage and would set the key in the trunk so as to have two hands free, then close the trunk at the end). I don’t think locking the key in the trunk is even possible with a fob.
Leaving the key in car- Because it is a physical object you are constantly taking in and out of your pocket, it is easy to forget whether you’ve stowed it in your pocket or just set it down while distracted. Even if I wasn’t locked out of the car, the driver’s seat was the first place I checked if my key was missing.
In fact, after the first couple lockouts with my first new car, I took to carrying a spare key on a separate key ring. I did this from the 70’s through the early 00’s. It didn’t stop locking myself out of the car, but it made it trivial to recover from that.
OK, I accept your challenge. Since your arguments are stated as first-person anecdotes, I’ll cite my arguments the same way.
Locking their key in the car
Nope. Not in more than half a century of driving. But in the interests of full disclosure, there was just one (1) incident in all those years that was something similar, and it was a complete fluke that couldn’t happen today. I was parked in an airport parking garage and about to catch a flight. I got my luggage out of the back seat, and then I think I locked all the doors with a button on the driver’s door, and as I swung it shut, it neatly knocked the keys out of my hand and onto the seat as the locked door swung shut. The reason this couldn’t happen today is that this was before the era of electronic key fobs that are attached to the physical ignition key, where the normal procedure is to lock the car by pressing a button on the fob after all the doors are closed. Hey, not all innovations are bad! The electronic lock/unlock functions for doors and trunk are very useful. The ability to unlock only the driver’s door (one push) or all doors (two quick pushes) is also very nice. Nothing to do with newfangled keyless ignition.
Locking their key in the trunk
Nope. Just nope. In fact, I have a particular paranoia about that, because when I’m loading stuff into the trunk I’m usually somewhere away from home, so before closing the trunk I have this ingrained habit of always jingling the keys in my pocket. As for setting the keys down in the trunk, nope nope nope – absolutely verboten! That’s an open invitation to disaster!
Leaving the key in car
Nope. I can’t even conceive of how this could happen. The ignition has to be off to be able to remove the key from the ignition lock (a major plus for traditional keyed ignition) at which point the only place for the keys is straight into my pocket. Of course the car beeps furiously if the driver’s door is opened with the keys still in the ignition. If I happen to park outside, or if I park in my garage and the door to the house is locked, I can’t even get into my house without my keys. How I could I leave them anywhere, particularly with an ingrained lifelong habit of always being conscious of having them in my pocket.
Not since the fob with the key is used to lock and unlock, but in the before times, several times. One time while the car was running. It took about 5 minutes to use a coat hanger to get in.
I stashed a spare key in a hidden place under my car. This was back in the '90s, when keys were plain metal with no attached electronics, so it didn’t matter if they got wet.
Yeah, I had a key to the trunk (which was a separate key back then) screwed in behind one of my license plates. Then in the trunk I had a key hidden somewhere to the car itself.
And, yes, I’ve locked myself out a couple of times, which is why I came up with that solution. Also locked myself out of a rental truck, but I eventually managed to work my way into it.
Add another person who long thought the simple key an apex technology needing no improvement, but who is now a big fan of the fob/push button start. I suspect the fob is better for men than women, due to pockets/purses. But I am a full convert to just never taking my fob out of my pocket and just pushing the button to start the car and touching the handle to enter/lock.
I’m not certain how far I could get from the car (couple year old Subaru) before it would make what noises. I have periodically wondered about “testing” what I can or can’t do WRT locking the fob in the car (which is only an issue if I take it out of my pocket and place it in my golf bag or luggage), or what happens if I walk away from the running car - but when it comes down to it, I’ve never been interested enough to conduct such short, simple tests. Which suggests that it isn’t much of a problem/worry for me.
I do know it makes some noise and flashes a message when “key removed from vehicle” if I step out of the running car to open/close the tailgate. And in the past, I believe I was able to leave the car running in the driveway to run back into the house if I forgot something. I would think that some sort of auto shutoff would be appropriate if the key were a certain distance from the car for a certain amount of time. With all the weird notices and protections I think unnecessary, it seems odd that such an obvious (to me) one would be absent.
The one thing I’ve noticed myself doing a couple of times lately is to park the car - whether on the side of a road, in a lot, or in my garage - and push the button without taking the car out of gear. I forget what signal it gives me when I do that, but the light on the start button turns red rather than green.
I kind of enjoyed it when I had a Ford Explorer that had the key code on the door so you could enter the vehicle it was nice if you wanted to leave the car running or if you theoretically locked yourself out of the car. I kind of preferred the physical key honestly but I also understand why people like key fobs.
It’s a 2020 Corolla. I hope they’ve learned something since 2020.
Not quite on topic, but a friend of mine, in his student days (med student, god help us!) got really drunk, drove to a McDonalds and parked. Ordered food, sat eating it and then completely forgot where his car was. Thinking it stolen, he got an Uber home.
The next night, having not learned any lessons, he got really drunk, went to the same McDonalds, and there, in the parking area was his car. A miracle! So he drove home.
This is why we have laws. He did actually quit drinking about 6 months later.