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The pedal won't go to the metal on the 2010 Ford Focus and that is likely to make the parents of many teenagers happy.

Parents will be able to limit their children's top speed, the volume on the car stereo — but not the bass level — and even regulate the chirping of the seat-belt monitor with a new device that Ford Motor Co. plans to make standard equipment on all of its vehicles after it debut on the Focus next year. The compact car will come with a new device called MyKey, which allows parents to program a top speed for the car — 129 kilometres an hour — and also keep the music a little less loud by limiting the sound system to 44 per cent of its total volume.

That is higher than the speed limit on just about every road in Canada and most U.S. highways, but some states let drivers whip along at 80 miles per hour (the equivalent of 129 kilometres an hour), said Ford Canada spokeswoman Christine Hollander.

The special key can be programmed to remind young drivers every six seconds for five minutes to put on their seat belts and actually keeps the audio system mute until the seat belt is fastened.

"MyKey can help promote safer driving, particularly among teens, by encouraging seat-belt use, limiting speed and reducing distractions," Susan Cischkev, Ford's vice-president of sustainability, environment and safety engineering, said in a statement.

It's also the latest example of what is becoming a key battleground in the North American car wars — electronics and creature comforts such as massaging seats, satellite radio, drowsiness alerts for drivers and eventually a seamless transition between personal communication devices in the home and the car.

Ford also announced yesterday, for example, that some of its models hitting the market next year will be equipped with a collision warning system that uses radar to warn drivers that a collision is possible and engages a power assist to the brake system that helps drivers reach maximum braking power more quickly.

Other auto makers will likely offer gadgets similar to MyKey if it's successful, but Ford's program taps into a on-board communications system called Sync that it developed with software giant Microsoft Corp.

Ford said MyKey will become standard equipment on all of its Ford, Lincoln and Mercury models, but offered no timeline on when it would be added to the other vehicles.

MyKey can also be programmed to sound chimes warning drivers when they hit 72, 88 and 106 km/h.

More than 50 per cent of parents who responded to a survey worry that teenagers are distracted by cellphones and texting or driving at unsafe speeds, the auto maker said. Parents also fear their teenagers are driving without seat belts being fastened.

A survey of teens showed 67 per cent oppose adding the technology, but that number fell almost in half if using the system increased teens' driving privileges.