Speeding off in a stolen car, the thief thinks he has got a great catch. But he is in a nasty surprise. The car is fitted with a remote immobilizer and a radio signal from a control center miles away will ensure that once the thief switches the engine 1 , he will not be able to start it again.
For now, such devices 2 only available for fleets of trucks and specialist vehicles used on construction sites. But remote immobilization technology could soon start to trickle down to ordinary cars, and 3 be available to ordinary cars in the UK 4 two months.
The idea goes like this. A control box fitted to the carincorporates 5 miniature cellphone, a microprocessor and memory, and a GPS satellite positioning receiver. 6 the car is stolen, a coded cellphone signal will tell the unit to block the vehicle’s engine management system and prevent the engine 7 restarted.
There are even plans for immobilizers 8 shut down vehicles on the move, though there are fears over the safety implications of such a system.
In the UK. an array of technical fixes is already making 9 harder for car thieves. “The pattern of vehicles crime has changed,” says Martyn Randall of Thatcham, a security research organization based in Berkshire that is funded in part 10 the motor insurance industry.
He says it would only take him a few minutes to 11 a novice how to steal a car, using a bare minimum of tools. But only if the car is more than 10 years old.
Modern cars are a far tougher proposition, as their engine management computer will not 12 them to start unless they receive a unique ID code beamed out by the ignition key. In the UK, technologies like this 13 achieve a 31 per cent drop in vehicle-related crime since 1997.
But determined criminals are still managing to find other ways to steal cars. Often by getting hold of the owner’s keys in a burglary. In 2000, 12 per cent of vehicles stolen in the UK were taken using the owner’s keys double the previous year’s figure.
Remote-controlled immobilization system would 14 a major new obstacle in the criminal’s way by making such thefts pointless. A group that includes Thatcham, the police, insurance companies and security technology firms have developed standards for a system that could go on the market sooner than the 15 expects.
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