Big-City Mayors Blame Carmakers for Soaring Auto Thefts, Let Criminals Off the Hook

In some of America’s biggest cities, cars — Kias and Hyundais in particular — are being stolen by the thousands, yet rather than hold the thieves alone responsible for their actions, municipalities like Baltimore, St. Louis, Philadelphia, and Seattle are suing automakers, charging their vehicles are too easy to heist.The lawsuits claim that automobiles have insufficient anti-theft countermeasures, as if citizens can’t resist the urge to take property that doesn’t belong to them and it’s the fault of victims for leading them into temptation.Baltimore, which filed suit this week, has seen almost twice as many automobiles stolen this year as last. Four-in-ten are Kias and Hyundais, meaning other models account for the remainder, indicating a crime problem, not just a design flaw like the Ford Pinto’s predisposition to explode in rear-end collisions.A TikTok trend has exacerbated the crime spree, with videos demonstrating the ease with which automobiles — without what Baltimore’s Democratic mayor, Brandon Scott, calls “industry-standard vehicle immobilization technology” — can be started without a key.Cities seem to be arguing that automakers are creating something akin to an “attractive nuisance” for homeowners, dangerous features such as swimming pools that might attract children, requiring them to eliminate them or provide a warning.Drivers — carelessness aside — can’t be said to invite another person to heist their rides in this way, and while they may have a reasonable expectation that the engineers who design a Kia or Hyundai consider avoiding theft, cars cannot yet drive themselves away in search of the open road.Mr. Scott, however, lays all blame on manufacturers, accusing them of pinching pennies. “These cost-cutting measures employed by Hyundai and Kia at the expense of public safety are unacceptable,” he said in a statement. “They have left our residents vulnerable to crime and are significantly burdening our police resources.”Baltimore’s police commissioner, Michael Harrison, also put the onus on carmakers. “We must demand more from these manufacturers in addressing this increase in vehicle thefts,” he said, “which put victims and residents in harm’s way.” Neither made mention of punishing thieves.In a letter to WBAL-TV, Kia called the lawsuits “without merit,” pointing out that they’re offering a “free, enhanced security software upgrade to restrict the unauthorized operation of vehicle ignition systems and we are also providing steering wheel locks for impacted owners at no cost to them.”Kia is also “supplying more than 44,000 free steering wheel locks to over 330 law enforcement agencies across the country for distribution to impacted Kia owners,” akin to a Philadelphia program — discontinued over concerns about legal liability — that provided steering wheel locks to a few hundred drivers.The passive security measures are prudent, but address only the supply while ignoring the demand, which has increased as cities go idle on the active pursuit of criminals. Last week at Baltimore, seven Republicans from Maryland’s House of Delegates sent a letter to Mr. Scott laying out how car thieves are “nearly guaranteed” to get away with it.Of 2,473 cars stolen in Baltimore in 2022, the delegates said, only 397 — six percent — resulted in arrests and only seven in convictions. Since penalties aren’t as harsh for minors, they’re taking advantage of both the law and the ease of pulling off a joyride, with a car being stolen every hour on average in June of last year, according to statistics published by Wisconsin’s MacIver Institute.In Milwaukee, children as young as 12 are stealing cars, highlighted by the upcoming “Kia Boyz Trial” of Markell Hughes, 17. That city saw 10,476 car thefts in 2021, with 66 percent of them Kias and Hyundais, after the ignition flaw was exposed in a YouTube video viewed over six million times.It’s clear from the scope of the car-theft pandemic that software updates and security upgrades aren’t the vaccines America needs. To ensure the security of life and property, cities will have to get rolling on efforts to deter thieves with the force of law and prosecute offenders, who have gotten the message that you can do the crime and not do the time.

Big-City Mayors Blame Carmakers for Soaring Auto Thefts, Let Criminals Off the Hook

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