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Canada became a car theft capital of the world
- jhot 2y agoJust had my car stolen in Canada. A real headache since I'm not a Canadian. The hotel's parking garage had many other cars broken into that night and my van must have been a convenient stuff-hauler.
- robertlagrant 2y ago> “Everyone is talking about trying to recover vehicles, and a lot of my focus has been on why we are not making the vehicles tougher to steal in the first place,” he said. This is a surprising statement. My recollection is that car manufacturers have made cars far, far harder to steal than they used to be. Possibly it's just an insecure whataboutism, but I don't think car recovery is first on the list for most people in terms of car crime.
- fxtentacle 2y agoOddly enough, a lot of the anti-theft features that we take for granted in Europe - like ignition breakers - aren't built into US cars by default. I guess sometimes laws really help to nudge companies to do the right thing. Especially if doing the right thing costs a few additional $$$s.
- goalieca 2y agoFlipper zero is able to record and replay rolling codes. It turns out many car manufacturers handled the error condition of a key press being out of range so it will roll back the counter after a certain number of failures. The solution is to move to a signed challenge model.
- iamtheworstdev 2y agoSome companies have had a major relapse. See Kia/Hyundai.
- tjoff 2y agoOnly in the US, due to lax regulations. (and greed on behalf of the manufacturer)
- robertlagrant 2y agoYeah, I've heard of that. It still sounds like a local minimum, though.
- michael_vo 2y ago"Show me the incentive, and I'll show you the outcome" - Charlie Munger. Car companies don't need to care, if your car gets stolen the insurance company buys you a new one. You do lose some customers who won't buy your car if it's in the top ten most stolen list. We could implement a law that fines car companies who are in the top ten list, and pays out to the car companies who are at the bottom.
- dinkumthinkum 2y agoFine car companies? Isn’t that just madness? Do we really need to think there criminals have superior rights over law-abiding citizens? What do we get at the end of leftist madness? I don’t know if it’s something those that are espousing such positions will actually want.
- michael_vo 2y agoYou're missing the point. This has nothing to do with politics. I'm demonstrating how economic incentives could be used to change the outcome. And car companies DO get fined. Kia was fined (lawsuit) $200MM in USA for not using modern standard anti-theft tech in order to save money. Insurance companies DO give you a discount if you use the chubb or install other anti theft devices. Economic incentives work!
- dghlsakjg 2y agoThere is no requirement for insurance companies to write policies or to sell them at reasonable rates. Try selling an uninsurable car, it’s really hard. Or you require dealers to make a disclosure at the time of sale to the effect that the car does not meet modern security standards. Incentives work both ways. Most new cars have the computer hardware to solve this problem with a firmware update.
- Ekaros 2y agoUninsurable cars sell pretty well from what I heard from UK... Where they had large number of issues with Land Rovers. People only notice they can't insure something after they buy it...
- betaby 2y agoAirtag shows car in transit. Police: 'sorry we can't locate it' or 'we can't enter the port of Montreal'
- yardie 2y ago> car manufacturers have made cars far, far harder to steal than they used to be. Literally, just watched a video of a bunch of kids breaking into a Kia and driving off with it with nothing more than a screwdriver and USB key. And the USB key wasn't being used how you think. It could have been a chunk of wood. But in this day and age a USB key is easier to find.
- betaby 2y agoI mean, a bunch of kids can break into my home 'with nothing more than a screwdriver' not even USB needed. That doesn't mean it should be tolerated - they must go to jail.
- Ekaros 2y agoStep ladder and rock or three get you in very many places. Does not mean we shouldn't punish anyone who did it extremely harshly.
- Workaccount2 2y agoThe kias are a unique case to be fair. Back in the day pretty much all cars were like them.
- mglz 2y agoOne thing the article totally skips: WHO is stealing the cars? Organized groups? A bunch of individuals then reselling to organized smugglers? That seems to be at the root of the issue. Also, what made this become and issue now and not before?
- michael_vo 2y agoIn Canada the towing truck companies stealing cars are all part of the Mafia or gangs. It got so bad that sometime recently the government only certified a few tow truck companies. When you get into an accident you can't call a tow truck company. The police will call the reputable tow truck for you. This happened to my next door neighbor. I saw them loading up his car at night, my dad went outside and yelled at them. They soon drove off.
- adamomada 2y agoIt is pure genius though, people are conditioned to ignore a tow truck taking a car away, assuming it’s somehow legit in all cases. It is ridiculously easy to steal a car with a tow truck.
- p51-remorse 2y agoOne thing I really don’t understand: why isn’t this trivially solvable with policing? Just make car theft / break-ins a bad play game-theory wise: a few cars on the street are left with the police ready to pounce. You break in to a bait car, you get 2 years in jail. Would take not that many resources, for not that long. Word would spread fast that breaking into cars is not “free” anymore. Seems like this is what we do with every other crime: you don’t avoid speeding because you _know_ you’ll get caught, you avoid speeding because there’s a 1% chance of getting caught and being fined 1000x the benefit you derived from it.
- hcarvalhoalves 2y agoIn many jurisdictions it’s illegal for the state to setup a “trap” to imprison people, like a decoy car to be stolen. This voids the validity of the proof in trial. Isn’t that the case in Canada?
- p51-remorse 2y agoI thought entrapment had an element of the state convincing you to commit a crime. My understanding is if the state just leaves an Acura somewhere, and you break into it, it’s fair game.
- papercrane 2y agoEntrapment is when the state induces someone to commit a crime they would not have otherwise committed. For something to be entrapment, the state must overcome some level of resistance, not just provide an opportunity for a crime. For example, leaving a car out and watching it get stolen is not entrapment. Buying drugs and then arresting the seller is not entrapment. The police in Canada have a tactic, called "Mr. Big", where they introduce a suspect to an undercover agent posing as a criminal, usually posing as a high-level organized crime member, and then getting the trust of the suspect. This has resulted in entrapment. For example, in R. v. Mack, a police used a "Mr. Big" style system to try and get Mack to sell drugs. It wasn't until the police threatened him that he agreed, after which they arrested him. His conviction was later thrown out because it was ruled this was entrapment.
- farceSpherule 2y agoCanada is the new California. These poor people stealing cars need money because they are out of work. We can't throw them in jail for being jobless and "unhoused"
- p51-remorse 2y ago… but we can throw them in jail for stealing cars.
- whythre 2y agoThese are usually powerful and organized criminal gangs. They are not small time, put-food-on-table-because-it’s-the-only-way. If you interact with criminals, they are not the ‘noble poor,’ they are predatory and see their victims as deserving. And often they hurt the other low income people around them.
- dboreham 2y ago> see their victims as deserving There are psych experiments that show this is a prerequisite for crime.
- malcolmgreaves 2y agoThe guy you are replying to is being sarcastic.
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- BadHumans 2y agoI can't tell if you are implying we should throw them in jail for being out of work and homeless or saying they believe all thieves are unemployed.
- mardifoufs 2y agoAlmost never happens in Montreal, compared to Toronto. I mean it's more common than it used to be but not very common. So it really sounds like a Toronto issue.
- motohagiography 2y agoarguably this govt tolerates the crime because it's against people who normally vote against them, mainly small business owners and upper middle class people who own trucks and luxury cars, and the profits of the crime benefit the diaspora networks who donate to candidates who secure parliamentary seats for the party. I live near brampton (in the article) where much of the car theft problem originates, and we are physically overrun by large groups of newcomers standing around on the roads at all hours because there are so many people and nowhere for them to go. it also creates a huge grey/black market underclass as the economy fails to absorb people in sufficient numbers. the basic problem is the govt wants to demolish the old society and has orchestrated a de-facto invasion to secure power for its party, secure seats with the black market money donations, with the convenient side effect of unleashing tolerated crime against its opponents. these are ancient tactics, just not ones we're used to in the west. tech like trackers, cameras, patrol drones, and even domestic sigint are temporary bargaining solutions to what is a policy disaster that could end with the stroke of a pen.
- voisin 2y ago> the basic problem is the govt wants to demolish the old society and has orchestrated a de-facto invasion to secure power for its party, secure seats with the black market money donations, with the convenient side effect of unleashing tolerated crime against its opponents I love how competent you think Trudeau is, but isn’t the simplest answer that he is totally unqualified for his role, as is his deputy PM, and they did not think through the consequences of letting so many people into the country with no planning to accommodate them? Even if you are right about this disproportionately affecting voters for their opponents (highly doubtful given how liberal the GTA and GVA are, both hotbeds of car theft), they turned off many liberal voters (myself included) by making no provisions for sufficient public medical infrastructure - a cornerstone of Canadian liberal identity - or housing. I think the sad thing is that rather than electing policy wonks like Ignatieff or Carney who can see consequences of actions, we elected a school teacher because of his last name and appearance, and now we get the consequences of that.
- bryanlarsen 2y ago
- maxwell 2y agoThe police response: https://toronto.citynews.ca/2024/03/14/leave-car-keys-at-front-door-to-avoid-violent-confrontations-with-car-thieves-toronto-police https://toronto.citynews.ca/2024/03/14/leave-car-keys-at-fro...
- bryanlarsen 2y agoThe actual police response: https://globalnews.ca/news/10422852/cars-stolen-gta-port-of-montreal/ https://globalnews.ca/news/10422852/cars-stolen-gta-port-of-...
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- djoldman 2y agoHow are cars usually stolen? Are they driven away using the car's power or hauled away using a tow truck?
- voisin 2y agoThey use devices to gain access and start the vehicle, drive it a few blocks away and leave it for another group to come pick it up and take it to a shipping container to be transported to the Port of Montreal to be shipped overseas. The original group goes and grabs another vehicle, etc etc. They’ve got groups on the lookout in the neighbourhood for police. It is highly organized and involves many people.
- adamomada 2y agoAnd a tow truck towing a car out of an otherwise empty parking lot at night would not raise any suspicion whatsoever.
- rmellow 2y agoI've been in Toronto for a decade and the only enforcements I've seen are transit related. People do whatever they want here. I lived in South America in the 1990s, but every now and then Toronto manages to shock me in worse ways.
- sandworm101 2y agoFor perspective on Canadian policing re cars and theft: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/stolen-licence-plate-parking-tickets-1.7257402 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/stolen-licence-plate-... >> I was quite flabbergasted that the police weren't at all concerned," Novak said. >> Halton police say they've since seized the stolen plate from an unoccupied vehicle. So the cops tracked down the stolen plates and removed them. No arrest of the people using the plates fraudulently. No seizure of the vehicle. The cops just unscrewed the stolen plates and walked away. They really don't care about vehicle-related property crime.
- adamomada 2y agoAlso it should be noted that Halton region police are the highest paid police force in the entire nation. If they don’t have any incentive to do it...
- rcarmo 2y agoCanada is… a country, right? Not a city. Nitpicking here, but that doesn’t feel like a BBC headline.