There's Only One Way To Find Out

What happens if you start your Prius with the groovy SmartKey (the kind that doesn't actually have to be inserted into the dashboard, just in your pocket or otherwise near the car when you push the "start" button), and then once you're driving along, you throw your keys out the window?



Well, we weren't really expecting the car to stop dead in its tracks -- or explode! -- when it got too far from the key. After all, this could present a serious safety hazard if a person were (say) barreling down the highway when her cranky toddler decided to heave her purse out the open window.

We are still wondering if at some point the car will notice that you no longer have the key, and issue a warning of some kind. Otherwise it seems entirely possible that Steve and Maggi could (say) leave their house together in their cherry red Prius one morning thinking they both had their keys in their pockets, and then he could drop Maggi off at their office in Columbia City and head to a meeting in Everett -- or a beach in Baja! -- and arrive there, and turn off the car, and only then discover that his key had been sitting on his dresser at home all along. What then?

Our own silver Prius unfortunately has a DumbKey that can't be removed from the dashboard slot without turning off the car -- otherwise you can be sure that one or more of us would be Baja-bound at this very moment, in the interest of furthering human knowledge. If any of you SmartKey people out there have driven away from your keys (accidentally or on purpose) or would be willing to see how far from them you can get, please let us know!