Blame the victim!
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âIf someone burns down a house, do you go after the person who built the house for making it too easy to burn down?
If that makes sense to you, you might be a leftist.â
This AG needs to get in line behind Chicago and St. Louis.
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Not necessarily, but you go after someone with money. Ellison is doing 3 things
- panders to his base
- avoids the expense of prosecuting and incarcerating the thieves, because they are not guilty, Ford and Toyota are
- takes hostage automakers, for favors or for money.
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The problem here is that KIA and Hyundai for decades tried increasing their profits by saving a few bucks per vehicle by not adding an engine immobilizer. A part that pretty much every other auto maker has been adding to all their vehicles since the 80s or early 90s. It was an industry standard seen as needed to make cars less easy to steal.
Not only that but their defective ignition design made it so easy to steal a vehicle that anyone with a USB cable could drive off with one in just a couple of seconds. They should have advertised their cars as keyless starting. It was a known design flaw they chose not to fix. That increased their profits a few bucks per vehicle at the significant risk of significant added expenses to almost all of their customers. It is very similar to an auto manufacturer knowingly making a car with insufficient or defective headlights or breaks.
Now many insurance companies will not insure these vehicles because they are so much more likely to be stolen than any other car brands. Their owners now face a total loss when anyone with a USB cable wants a free ride. And those that can find insurance are faced with significantly higher rates.
Yes it is ultimately the criminalsâ fault but if a person leaves a firearm or their wallet visible on the front seat of their car and regularly parks it on a city street they should expect that some day their car is going to be broken into and their stuff taken. There are common sense preventions that owners and manufacturers need to take to decrease the likelihood of theft. These two manufacturers have done the equivalent of leaving the keys in the ignition without giving their customers the ability to remove them from the vehicle.
I think municipalities whose already overwhelmed LEOs have been further burdened by having to respond to the increase in vehicle thefts made possible by this design flaw have a potentially legitimate civil complaint. As does everyone who has purchased a Kia or Hyundai over the past couple of decades.
I was unaware of this issue when I bought our Hyundai a couple of years ago. Who thinks of having to study the design blue prints on auto makers ignitions when making a vehicle purchase? Ours does not have the design flaw, though it does have a key fob which is another security risk all car makers are ignoring at the moment (though one that is a little bit harder for the common thief to take advantage of). But thanks to this long term issue it is still at significantly increased risk of being broken into since I am sure most these thieves arenât going to look to see that it is push button start before they smash out the window.
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So youâre saying that car theft is NOT a problem anymore because of this? Why is everyone wanting to coddle the criminal?? I should be able to leave my truck anywhere Iâm at, with the keys in it(which I never do), and expect it to be there when I get back. If not, THE CRIMINAL is at fault! They know it isnât theirs and know that stealing it is against the law.
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I think what he is (accurately) saying, is that car theft is less common/more difficult because of manufacturers (other than the two mentioned) widely implementing the engine immobilizer.
But with the Kia/Hyundai, car theft is easier and more common due directly to the choice to save money by not including this
I myself donât think we need the government sticking its nose into all of these things, but hopefully the free market takes care of it because people will simply stop buying their cars now that this is a known problem
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So, the Bloodbath begins!!!
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My â76 Camaro never had an âengine immobilizerâ and there were less thefts. This is all BS, weâre placating to the criminal. They are in charge of how we build buildings, cars and soon our homes!
If we make it down this path, I see drawbridges, moats, arrow loops, curtain walls and even booby traps!
Iâm picturing this in my next garage, has the engine immobilized and a gang banger avoidance mechanism!
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What Nathan said, let the market decide. If those cars are getting stolen too often for insurers to take the risk, the market will force the manufacturer to step up and make them more secure, or theyâll stop selling as many cars.
Word is already out that these cars are harder to insure. It would keep me from buying or recommending one. No need for any government intervention here. Capitalism is working and customers can decide for themselves if they want the cars or not.
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Where did I mention coddling criminals? I think I was making a pretty clear point that car theft is a huge problem.
You can leave your key in your vehicle if you want or your wallet or your gun. It is a crime to steal those things and anyone doing so should be punished. But you have still lost your property to a foreseeable and very predictable outcome by not putting the tiny bit of effort in that could have protected it.
More importantly by leaving valuables in your unlocked vehicle or intentionally installing deficient locks and ignition switches in them people and companies end up making crime so easy for the criminals that it encourages even more crime and even more criminals. This makes everyone much less safe.
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The argument makes sense, and can be extended from cars in Minneapolis to women in Minneapolis. I.e., she walks without a male companion, wears no hijjab - rape is an expected outcome! We need to prosecute women, who get decent men in trouble this way, following wise example of the Taliban.
Right?
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I donât think you caught Shamrockâs point/argument.
If I may, I believe the analogy of his âargumentâ to your hypothetical woman, if she walked down the street in a bikini shaking her butt and then walked into a dark alley alone next to a bar emptying out drunk guys at 2AM, despite it being completely wrong and illegal, itâs a potential foreseeable outcome that she might receive unwanted sexual advances. It might be a personal recommendation that if she doesnât want those advances/even attacks, maybe she shouldnât do thatâŠeven if itâs legal for her to do that.
I donât see anywhere that Shamrock or anyone in here said the car manufacturer or owner should be prosecuted, nor do I see anywhere that Shamrock or anyone in here said that the criminals steeling the vehicles are âdecent peopleâ getting into trouble because of others
People also totally shouldnât invade your home at 3AM to steal your stuffâŠbut would it be recommended to leave your front door open all night every night? I think weâd all recommend against that.
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Along these same lines,
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Oh, Canada
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I think @Nathan57 âs analogy is closer to the point I was trying to make.
Another analogy would be a hotel chain that knowingly or even just negligently puts locks on the room doors that can be easily opened by sticking the end of a USB cable or other common item into them. Yes the thieves, rapists and kidnappers, etc. who easily access the rooms would be the true criminals. But if the hotel chain became aware that many of their customers were being harmed because of their inadequate security and didnât do anything to fix the problem for many years as the crimes continued to escalate it is quite likely that a jury would find them liable for damages.
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I think this recommended policy will quickly prove my point that making things easier for criminals will quickly lead to more crime and more criminals. Eventually that increase will lead to more people getting harmed as the criminals become more and more brazen and demand more and more from their victims.
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When AG Ellison is not busy abusing womenâŠ
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I got the point, and I reject it entirely. There is nothing flaunting or provocative in buying a budget car. There is nothing wrong with manufacturing a budget car lacking security of Fort Knox.
I am old enough to remember then senator Ellison swear his oath of office on Koran. What does his Sharia command him about grand theft auto?
Aaah, this is about forcing remote shutdown on all brands of cars, isnt it?
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Engine immobilizers (the ones that keep the car from starting without the owners key in the ignition, not the remote ones dystopian authoritarians want to force all future cars to be built with) and ignition locks that canât be bypassed with a simple piece of metal have been standard equipment on most budget cars for decades. I remember them in cheap cars from the mid 80s. Not to mention that the flawed design and lack of immobilizers in Hyundais and KIAs were not just limited to their cheap base models.
We arenât talking about Fort Knox here. We are talking about having a locking system that a kid with a USB cord canât bypass in a couple of seconds.
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This kind of pressure is up to consumers, not the AG! Any hope that hardening cars will deter criminals from crime, is false. âThe kids with USB cablesâ are going to move onto something else, and the AG will continue to pander, next he will blame home owners for flimsy doors, or women for not wearing hijjabs.
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