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Lots of comments that didn’t read the article so here’s a good excerpt on why there’s a lawsuit. Baltimore’s lawsuit says the companies “failed to keep up with
by aardvarkr 3y ago
Lots of comments that didn’t read the article so here’s a good excerpt on why there’s a lawsuit.
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.
“The dramatically increased rate of Hyundai and Kia theft in Baltimore has required city and police resources that would not have been needed but for Hyundai and Kia’s deliberate failures,” the lawsuit says. “Car thieves — many of them teenagers— take advantage of these failures and engage in reckless driving, creating substantial safety risks to themselves and Baltimore residents and their property.”
- aardvarkr 3y agoIt’s also worth noting that this was all started with a viral TikTok video showing Hire ridiculously easy it is to steal a Kia/Hyundai is. Here’s a collection of graphs showing the before and after of theft data in major cities. https://usafacts.org/data-projects/car-thefts https://usafacts.org/data-projects/car-thefts
- klodolph 3y agoThis echoes what happened in 2004 with Kryptonite locks and Bic pens. Someone figured out that you could open a Kryptonite lock using a Bic pen, which has roughly the same shape as a tubular lock key. You did not need to use the actual key or pick the lock. There was a rash of bike thefts afterwards. TikTok is a convenient scapegoat, but I think the problem would exist without TikTok, because it so closely echoes a similar situation from 2004. To be honest, I think that the manufacturer should bear the blame in both scenarios—it’s their responsibility to make sure that the products can withstand, for at least a few minutes, an unskilled thief with inconspicuous, unpowered, commonly available tools (like, a thief with no lock picks or angle grinders). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5efaWSWwlk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5efaWSWwlk
- dwater 3y agoWhen that happened Kryptonite voluntarily created a free lock replacement program, where if you owned a tubular cylinder Kryptonite lock they replaced it for free, postage paid.
- User23 3y agoClearly the answer is to sue TikTok too. You’re brilliant be sure to demand a consulting fee.
- aimor 3y agoThose charts are great, really drives home how quickly trends like this explode and increase total car theft. Also interesting how regional it is, the exploit at its peak quadrupled car thefts in Milwaukee in less than a year so Baltimore has plenty of room for things to get worse.
- mh- 3y agoAm I missing something, or did they not do anything to adjust for how many Kias/Hyundais are in those cities? That could explain why some cities saw much bigger spikes than others - or it might not! Feels sloppy. edit: this obviously doesn't negate your point, there's clearly an enormous spike. It's just weird since the article took the time to break it down by city, and to call attention to some cities seeing larger spikes than others.
- hgsgm 3y agoAre these standards written somewhere? If it's required, it should be documented.
- lcw 3y agoThe point of the lawsuit seems to be to create case law that would influence standards and/or a requirements for automotive security features.
- harimau777 3y agoI'm not a lawyer, but as I understand it, this sort of thing is generally based on a reasonable person standard. I.e. would a reasonable person assume that if their car requires a key to start, then it cannot be started with something as trivial as a USB key?
- Fatnino 3y agoI keep hearing this vague claim that the cars can be started with a usb key. How does this work? Is there a usb port that reads some secret file off the USB key? Is it just the USB plug shape that fits somewhere in the car that forces it to turn on?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- toast0 3y agoAs I understand it, USB-A plugs fit the ignition lock cylinder and will turn it. Unknown if you have to flip it and reverse it a minimum of two times before achieving usb-a super position and being able to plug in.
- moffkalast 3y agoHere's a demonstration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTeVgfPM0Xw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTeVgfPM0Xw Apparently it's more of a joke, you can do it completely bare handed if you don't mind tearing some plastic and manage to grab a finicky bit. The cars have no immobilizers at all apparently.
- HillRat 3y agoThese lawsuits are part of a longstanding effort by cities and states to try and develop a theory of manufacturer legal accountability through public nuisance law, an effort that is perhaps morally laudable but legally fraught; to date, other than a few outlier environmental cases from the '70s, courts have almost uniformly declined to create a kind of parallel product-liability law through nuisance. While individual car owners have legal recourse through traditional product liability and negligence routes, hard to see these cases succeeding in court; on the other hand, they do create some additional political pressure on Hyundai/Kia to take more responsibility, which is ultimately where the tobacco lawsuits in the '90s ended up -- not winning at the bench, but at the conference table.
- inconceivable 3y agothis is also seemingly the strategy for anti-gun manufacturer efforts. so far they don't seem to be successful.
- lesuorac 3y agoCan you clarify? Afaik, lawsuits again gun manufacturers are actually successful [1]. [1]: https://apnews.com/article/sandy-hook-school-shooting-remington-settlement-e53b95d398ee9b838afc06275a4df403 https://apnews.com/article/sandy-hook-school-shooting-reming...
- HillRat 3y agoThanks to tort carveouts in the PLCAA, liability suits against firearms manufacturers have additional hurdles to overcome; the Remington settlement was surprising because the plaintiffs would have had a hard time prevailing at trial. It’s likely that Remington (which settled without admitting fault), didn’t want to run the risk of sympathetic plaintiffs managing to kick a state-level hole in their otherwise ironclad federal protection against product liability suits.
- inconceivable 3y agooh right, i forgot, the mass shootings stopped.
- giantg2 3y ago“The dramatically increased rate of Hyundai and Kia theft in Baltimore has required city and police resources that would not have been needed but for Hyundai and Kia’s deliberate failures,” I'd like to see the data here. Is there any indication that the crime wouldn't be present in other areas of life? Would the people committing these crimes be law-abiding citizens if not for the temptation of these cars being easier to steal? Or would the police resources be spent on alternate crimes? It seems the common denominator here is people willing to commit crimes, not the city's claim that it "would not have been" if the company increased security.
- aardvarkr 3y agoHere’s the link that I posted above with data showing the before and after. It’s quite stark just how big of a spike there has been in theft. https://usafacts.org/data-projects/car-thefts https://usafacts.org/data-projects/car-thefts
- giantg2 3y agoNot exactly the data I was looking for. This is very niche and not from a more comprehensive level. However, the city level data seems to show that some cities are not seeing a higher spike, but others are. Without any real analysis, this seems to indicate that there are other factors at play than simply Kias being easier to steal.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- giantg2 3y agoWhy are people disagreeing with this? If you run an experiment looking at a variable change and it doesn't change much in some places but changes a lot in others, then wouldn't this prove that there are other variables at play - that it couldn't possibly be that single variable itself?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- prottog 3y agoKia should countersue because Baltimore fails to keep up with being a city in a developed country.
- meragrin_ 3y ago> Lots of comments that didn’t read the article so here’s a good excerpt on why there’s a lawsuit. Yea, I don't think that is it. > "Car thieves ... engage in reckless driving, creating substantial safety risks to themselves and Baltimore residents and their property." I don't see anything about Hyundai or Kia taking the cars for joy rides. They are not going out and encouraging people to steal their cars. They are not responsible for enforcing community standards. There is no law which states they must use any certain anti-theft technology. The cars are in no way malfunctioning. So why is there a lawsuit? Why not go after the owners? They bought the cars and didn't care whether they had anti-theft technology.
- narag 3y agoLots of comments that didn’t read the article... I didn't read it either... because I'd read a bunch of other articles and watched videos about the problem a couple of months ago. IMHO the root cause is that it's impossible with current legislation/courts practice to deter this kind of behaviour. Specifically: * Many of the perpetrators are minors * Stealing a car, depending on cirsumstances, is a misdemeanor * There is no mounting of repeated offenses * Police can't keep the suspects on custody for long and prosecution is overkill for the results So more or less, stealing a car is free. And instead of fixing the above points (maybe Baltimore as a city can't do that on its own) the "solution" is suing car makers.
- prepend 3y agoAuto theft in Maryland is a felony. What are thieves being charged with that’s not a felony?
- narag 3y agoSorry, it's been a couple of months and I can't remember the details. Is there a different threshold for minors? I don't know your legal system and maybe I "translated" what I was hearing with ours in mind. Or the article was about another state. I do remember that the police officers were very clear that they can do nothing. Even if the arrest the kids, the DA won't prosecute them.
- emodendroket 3y agoYeah, I'd take that with a grain of salt. Police officers always feel they're not being given free enough rein and their budgets are too low.
- alphanullmeric 3y agoAnd you should be sued for leaving your door unlocked if you get robbed, and the guy that robbed you should be pampered by the government as a victim of the system.
- jaclaz 3y agoIn EU immobilizers were mandated in 1998, 2001 in Australia, 2007 Canada. I.e. it wasn't like the manufacturers decided that they were useful, they were forced to introduce them by the national or pan-national authorities. If the US didn't mandate them, the reference to industry standards is - at best - a very feeble one, the city of Baltimore could - maybe - sue the NHTSA
- phendrenad2 3y agoThe headline literally matches the content of the article, even the quotes you posted. So saying that people "didn't read the article" is a strange claim.