The concerns are valid
>Certain Kia or Hyundai models can be stolen using a screwdriver and a USB charging cord.
>Cleveland, St. Louis and Seattle are among the other cities that started suing the the car companies earlier this year. Baltimore’s lawsuit says the companies “failed to keep up with industry standards,” and claim it was a result of business decisions made to reduce costs and boost profits “notwithstanding decades of academic literature and research supporting the deterrent effects” of anti-theft technology.
>Car thefts in the city have nearly doubled this year compared to the same time last year, part of a nationwide trend after videos showing how to easily steal the vehicles racked up millions of views on TikTok.
The fact that there are consumer products whose absence of features creates a negative externality for local law enforcement doesn't seem like sufficient grounds for standing, and this sort of thing is hardly limited to auto antitheft features. Awarding a municipality damages or other relief here would set precedent opening the door to all sorts of whacky things. Should spraypaint manufacturers be held liable for graffiti? Should speaker manufacturers that sell devices without decibel-output-limiters be held liable for noise complaints? The sane answer here to all of this seems like 'no'.
The appropriate venue for dealing with this is federal auto safety regulations, not municipalities trolling manufacturers in civil court.
Clearly there has to be some degree to which a customer can assume that a product they buy meets the standard functionality associated with that product.
It's a self-correcting problem, no lawsuit required.
The city could even have a special tax on "cars without immobilizers" that Kia owners paid, to cover their costs. Again: no lawsuit required.
You might as well say that a company that produces an exceptionally desirable product, one that perhaps entices thieves, would be responsible for a crime increase.
"Failing to keep up with industry standards" is also ridiculous because it's just a bandwagon fallacy.
Hyundai has some of the safest, most efficient small cars on the road, for great prices. I'd say these things are a net positive to "public safety" over all.
[0] https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/tech/2022/09/129_336571.htm...
In a sexist way would be similar that you are being raped because you wear some specific clothes.
Or you are hacked because you don't apply a patch.
In other societies crime is not normal, and "teenagers" have two braincells to understand that a thief is a repugnant person and that the consequences are not worth it.
Car makers should make their cars as hard as reasonably possible to steal.
If dumb ass tenager can do that, the it is a mess
If you don't take "reasonable precautions" then you are liable.
I will also note that I often see comments here talking about living in SF and how they leave their car unlocked or windows down to limit the damage from thieves smashing the windows to get inside.
So with this "reasonable precautions" line, everyone who does this should be liable for promoting theft.
Sounds stupid, like the way to blame hyundai or kia for existence of scum people like thieves.
By only looking at cities you are pulling in a large number of other policies and effects that only cities may have implemented.
It absolutely is, though.
When they purchase a car, a reasonable person would assume that the key works to the degree that is standard in the industry.
Baltimore can make a standard requiring cars to have a better anti-theft system, but they haven't.
Yes, "You prevent theft by putting thieves in jail." But it's actually complicated if you adopt a realistic stance other than "I want to speak with the manager".
The part that's Hyundai's fault is both the ridiculously easy to steal a car BUT also they dragged their feet when asked to address the issue and didn't do anything other than telling police and local governments "Wait for the next model in a couple of years"
If Kia is liable for inducing crime, government should be similarly liable for allowing crime; as preventing it is their main job.
Does that really exceed the cost damage done if they're left to keep on stealing/crashing cars? At some point they'll kill someone, and the 'cash value of a human life' question will come up.
Damn you right, it's so simple, why didn't they thought of just putting the thieves in jail?!
Also, seems like this whole "people stealing cars" thing doesn't just happen in Baltimore. What if putting the thieves in jail could work in other cities too? Maybe even internationally?
You could be on to something really big here, I hope people from Baltimore government comes across your comment.
This is such an incredible naive view of the world.
Whether or not crimes are committed is a complicated interplay of cost/benefit.
You say that the city is acting as if thieves are some force of nature. And to a certain extent they are. If it is easy enough to commit a crime and the reward is high enough a crime will be committed. As an example if you leave gold bars littered on your front yard people will pick them up. No amount of "putting thieves in jail" will save you.
Obviously increasing the chance of getting caught acts as a deterrent. But it is not cost free. Investigating and prosecuting car thieves cost hard money. If there are too many thieves of opportunity created by sub-par security arrangements the police/justice system becomes overwhelmed. The city can and should increase their police force of course, but at a certain point it is like trying to stop a tide with a rake. If you can prevent crime before it happens, for example by following sane and cost-efficient security practices that saves money and aggravation for everyone involved.
What prevents crime is multiple overlapping layers of our society engineered such that crime is maintained at a certain level. "putting thieves in jail" is just one of those layers. And if you think you can simply policeman yourself out of any situation then you haven't thought about the problem to a sufficient depth yet
Why do you suppose this is?
What is happening there, that isn't happening in Baltimore?
Of course there is an amount of "putting thieves in jail" which will save you; once all the thieves are in jail, the remainder of the populace would mind their own business and walk past the gold bars.
If your thesis is that literally everyone would steal those gold bars, then I have to point out that this is a very pessimistic view, and that there are multiple different places around the world where it wouldn't happen.
Perhaps. I posit that you are going to run out of one of these things sooner than you are going to run out of thieves though: gold bars, patience of police to hunt down your stolen gold bars, places in prison.
You are going to run out of gold bars because if there is a stash of them unsecured there will be some thieves who either by sheer luck, or by being better at their job than the police at theirs will succesfully get away with stealing them.
You are going to run out of police patience by one of two ways: either immediately, once they hear that your unsecured gold bars were just laying in your front garden. In which case they take your report and chuck it in a drawer to forget about it. Or if you are politically well connected they will try to persuade you to secure them better. If you are literally their king and they can’t convince you to store the gold better they might try to protect it by posting a policeman next to it
And then finnaly if you have so much money that replenishing the stolen gold is not a problem, and you have so much political power that the police is not able to change your storage practices then that is when you are going to run out of space in your prisons.
> If your thesis is that literally everyone would steal those gold bars
Not at all. But it doesn’t need to be. My thesis is that there would be enough people who would try that it overwhelms your police force destined to throw thieves in prison.
In other places around the world those things are controlled by close-knit communities where being seen stealing would spread the word like wildfire and ruin the thief's reputation (or end up in a beating), not because people is purer and immune to sin or idiocy.
It's not pessimistic nor paranoid to lock your door. All it takes is one bad apple, even if it's one in a million.