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.”
This isn't as simple as "no immobilizer". My 2004 Ford F250 doesn't have one either.
Thieves got into it and tried extremely hard to force the ignition and steal it. They tried hammering a flat head into it and rotating. Didn't work. They tried grabbing the outside of the mechanism with some kind of pliers and rotate, and that didn't work. I can see they easily spent several minutes on the whole ordeal, and didn't get anywhere. The entire lock mechanism was destroyed, almost shaved smaller from how many times they tried and their pliers slipped.
When I got to it a few days later, I had to get home using that truck. I put the key in the ignition and turned it, and drove off.
I figured these Hyundai/Kia thefts using a USB cable was some techy issue... like there was a auto technicians USB port that would disable car security if it has something plugged into it.
No.
After 5 minutes of searching you see that a USB-A connector just happens to fit perfectly over the nub in the ignition and allows you to turn it.
The problem is there is no engine immobilizer. So you can start the engine just by physically turning the ignition. I thought EI was pretty much standard on all cars post late 90's.
I can see why news organizations don’t want to publicize “your old phone cable is a skeleton key for Kia/Hyundai ignitions” - but it’s kind of a critical piece of information that does push this issue into the realm of manufacturer negligence imo.
"Immobilisers have been mandatory in all new cars sold in Germany since 1 January 1998, in the United Kingdom since 1 October 1998, in Finland since 1998, in Australia since 2001 and in Canada since 2007." (Wikipedia)
I have an older (2011) Kia and took it in for a firmware update. It changed two things:
1. Alarm sounds for 60s, increased from 30s
2. The key must be in the ignition for the vehicle to start
#2 seemed kinda odd, but then I realized that people who used any sort of remote start kit would have a bit of a dilemma, as it would no longer function after the update.
I live in Baltimore, in a pretty "good" part of town where most of the young professionals and Hopkins hospital staff live. I know 4 different people who've had cars stolen in the past 24 months. In 3 of these cases the perpetrators were teenagers, and in 2 of these cases they brandished guns. Only one of these thefts were Hyundai/Kia-related, and the thief punched my buddy in the face during the theft.
Many others I know have had cars broken into, homes broken into, tons of packages stolen, property vandalized, etc. Basically any form of property crime you can imagine.
The idea that Hyundai or Kia are somehow culpable for these this extreme social dysfunction is absolutely farcical. Vagrants and criminals are kept like livestock by the local government and a class of parasitic NGOs- left to terrorize normal law-abiding citizens who barely have a legal recourse to violence should one of these incidents go sideways.
It would take Ra's al Ghul to resolve the problems of this city
In my small neighborhood there is a group of 4 teenagers who have stolen probably a dozen kias. They drive them for 20 minutes, total them for a tik tok, and walk away with immunity. They have been arrested, charged, and released at least 3 times.
One of my neighbors has a recent kia that is not susceptible to these hacks, and 2 weeks ago witnessed these teens trying to steal her car one night. She went out and told them they were on camera, and they threatened her and kept trying to steal the car. She called the police who came later and explained steering wheel locks and did little else. The next night the same teens came back, and this time having learned about the details, went out and informed them that her car was not susceptible. They continued trying, damaging the ignition with a screwdriver but not stealing it. The third night in a row, she left a note explaining it in the window, which did not deter them but cause them to bust out the window with the note taped on it.
The city is now distributing steering wheel locks for free to any kia owners, but they have caused a local shortage and can no longer offer them.
I've had neighbors waiting for their appointment to have the ignition modified have their cars totaled.
If you street park your car, even if it isn't a kia, you have high odds of being side swiped by one of these kids on purpose.
It's not a car theft issue, it's a legal joyride and clout exercise. You are lucky if your city is still only experiencing car theft and not this new form of car terrorism.
Cities get what cities vote for. If they naively vote for "good intentions" over practical policy, there's a cost to the lessons learned. The cost may exceed the value, particularly if the lessons could be called self-evident. The cost can also be ruinous (e.g. Portland, S. Francisco.). In the long view, we can hope for correction and that the philosophical observer can say, "Well, that didn't work out like we thought it would", but this is cold comfort to the victims in the intervening years and the opportunity cost for the city at large.
From the outside, the policies seem to defy all common sense. Doubling down on bad policy seems like foolishness, naivety, denial, complicity, or AOTA. When the plane's computer is saying 'terrain.', 'terrain.', at what point do you decide to pull up, and what does that even look like in Balitmore? The complexity of Baltimore's problems brings out the defeatist in anyone, but I think there are some obvious starting points.
It reminds me of C.S. Lewis's statement about progress:
"Progress means getting nearer to the place you want to be. And if you have taken a wrong turn, then to go forward does not get you any nearer.
If you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; and in that case the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man."
Nearer to what are Baltimore's leader's trying to get?
As another person currently residing in Baltimore (and who just re-signed a lease to stay in a city I've enjoyed living in), it's worth pointing out that when people talk about "systemic" issues in policing and law enforcement, they're talking about things like the fact that for the last, oh, literally 162 years, Baltimore PD has not been administrated within the City of Baltimore, but instead by state lawmakers in the capital, Annapolis, which is around a 45-minute drive away. It's only been during the most recent local election that control was moving locally instead[1][2][3].
This kind of thing has resounding consequences. Baltimore is a city with a complicated history; for one thing, it's down from it's peak of almost 1M people to under 600k [4]. There's a significant history of racism in Maryland at large. There's a lot of fundamental issues, ranging from food deserts to lack of public transportation among the poorer areas. But to say that "[I]t would take Ra's al Ghul to resolve the problems of this city" is not true. It's certainly not all sunshine and roses, there's a lot of work being done at the grassroots as well, from new local investigative news organizations like the Baltimore Banner being funded to small makerspaces being set up in the now-plentiful well-built, but unused buildings that cities like Boston or Washington, DC. would only dream about having near their harbor or highways, and it's unfair to dismiss these things as being worthless.
Imagine if a city sued homeowners because it’s their fault for calling the police after a break-in, because they used a deadbolt that failed the LockPickingLawyer. This is about equally as sane.
Yes, yes, I know that Hyundai and Kia vehicles are easy pickings, but they talk as though “those vehicles are easy to steal, so those teenagers, they just felt so compelled to…” Nobody forces somebody to steal a car. If anti-theft prevents a car theft, consider that is still someone who had intent to steal a vehicle if it were possible.
LockPickingLawyer is highly skilled, and can defeat locks that most others can’t.
This is like selling one of those old Kryptonite locks that could be defeated with a Bic pen. At that point, the lock is truly defective, and should be pulled from the market. Your lock should require something more than a readily-available, vaguely key-shaped object to operate—so if you can operate the lock with a Bic pen (like the old Kryptonite locks) or a USB charging cable (like the new Kias), the lock is defective.
This situation is more like a deadbolt with a cover that could be pried off with your fingers, and then could be opened by any key shaped object once the cover is off.
Maybe to put in software terms - a login page that allowed anyone to sign in to any account by viewing source and finding an admin login button sitting there for anyone to see.
It truly is a flawed design. Yes, a design that might not be flawed for many societies around the world, but it's certainly flawed for a product that is sold in the USA.
No, that is not an apt analogy. Homeowners did not design the lock. Homeowners did not introduce a flaw into the lock to save money.
Think about it this way: no one forces a kid to jump into a pool and drown, but if you have a pool without a fence completely surrounding it and the kid does just that, you are liable for the damages by creating an attractive nuisance. Hyundai created the situation of easily stolen cars by not "building the fence around their pool".
Not the homeowners but the Master Lock. Which when hearing about quality of their products seems exactly same scenario. They do deserve to be sued in similar fashion for producing poor products. Like any pin and tumbler lock makers.
The answer is enforcement: cars were much easier to steal in the past, and somehow we managed to deter theft anyway. But in many US cities if your car gets stolen the cops won't even pick up the phone. They openly admit there's next to no chance of recovery, and rarely help you even if you have some kind of tracking solution.
If you do manage to track down your car, you won't get a timely enough response from the police to hold folks who stole it accountable. Most of the time they'll simply claim that they procured the car from someone else, and the police don't push the issue. Same with bicycle theft.
People are commenting on this with a fundamental lack of understanding of a car's ignition system.
This design truly is flawed. Traditionally, the immobilizer in an ignition system is physically tied to the steering column. Basically, you'd need to remove the steering column (the physical pipe that goes between your steering wheel and the front steering rack) in order to remove the part. If you want to defeat that immobilizer, you need to do a massive amount of damage to the mechanism, and that damage usually destroys the electronics that register the correct key being put into the ignition switch. This is more or less a self-reinforcing security feature, since the car wont start without this electronic signal.
Kia/Hyundai decided to just tack a little immobilizer module on without integrating it into the steering column, and they didn't even do a decent job mechanically securing it to the column from the outside. That means you can jam a screwdriver in there and pop the "security" mechanism off. Once that's gone, you're left with a little (conveniently USB sized) nub that can be turned which will immediately start the car. No muss, no fuss, no recognition that it's missing its immobilizer module.
Its a fundamentally flawed design, and it never should have made it past review.
> this is how Americans view the US. There is a lot of crime, the government and NGOs are on the side of the criminals etc
Probably fair, according to the anecdata collected in my travels in life so far. This view of the US seems common, almost consensus.
> he thinks they are far too low and want them increased more
This part, I don't think is typical (or even widespread) among Americans, and I don't see it expressly endorsed by ravensfan69 - seems like you are presuming it.
It seems to me that, by very far, the common American sentiment is, "our justice system has failed, and the focus on incarceration has made crime worse instead of better."
On the other hand, many types of crime - especially violent crime - have fallen in my lifetime in the US, in concert with much of the rest of the world.
But yeah, we Americans don't like prisons and we know damn well that our state is just building them as an end-around to achieve a plantation economy. We're not stupid.
So… is Apple going to be the hook in lawsuits because their phones are so desirable and easy to steal? Heck you don’t even need a screwdriver and usb cable like with the cars.
I should launch a lawsuit against the contractor who built my house because even though the doors have locks a third can break in with nothing more than a rock and some willingness to maybe get cut on shattered glass
Are there regulations requiring car companies to include this anti theft equipment? If not, that seems like the obvious route for government to pursue? Lacking a regulation requiring this up front, it seems like there is zero case here?
Maybe this is naive, but wouldn't the solution be not to sell the cars in Baltimore? It's not that large of a market and there are local car manufacturers there as well. Maybe require in the user agreement not to drive to Baltimore either, similar to the rental car agreements that don't allow for the cars to be driven to Mexico?
I mean, like, people relocate and stuff or go into other cities to buy cars. Banning sales isn't going to do much other than a middle finger to Baltimore.
> Maybe this is naive, but wouldn't the solution be not to sell the cars in Baltimore? It's not that large of a market and there are local car manufacturers there as well.
Baltimore may not be a large market, but there are also several other cities suing, and at least 18 state attorney generals have gotten involved. That's a much larger market than Baltimore.
Found a list of models that are blacklisted from being added to insurance policies [1]:
2015-2021 Hyundai Accent (all body styles)
2015-2021 Hyundai Elantra (two-door and four-door)
2015-2021 Hyundai Kona
2015-2021 Hyundai Santa Fe
2015-2021 Hyundai Tucson
2015-2018 Hyundai Veloster
2015-2021 Kia Forte
2015-2021 Kia Optima
2015-2016 Kia Optima Hybrid
2015-2021 Kia Rio (all body styles)
2015-2021 Kia Sedona
2015-2016 Kia Sorento
2015-2021 Kia Soul
2015-2021 Kia Sportage
edit: forbes [2] offers a slightly different list of models:
> Hyundai is offering a free software update to prevent thefts on certain targeted vehicles, starting Tuesday on nearly 4 million Hyundais on the road. The first million eligible cars are 2017 to 2020 Elantra, 2015 to 2019 Sonata and 2020 to 2021 Venue vehicles. Affected owners can bring in the car to Hyundai dealerships for the free anti-theft upgrade. It takes about an hour to install. Once updated a window decal will (hopefully) alert and deter thieves from targeting the vehicle.
> The next batch of eligible vehicles will go in for the software update in June and includes a long list of Kia models, including:
2018-2022 Accent
2011-2016 Elantra
2021-2022 Elantra
2018-2020 Elantra GT
2011-2014 Genesis Coupe
2018-2022 Kona
2020-2021 Palisade
2013-2018 Santa Fe Sport
2013-2022 Santa Fe
2019 Santa Fe XL
2011-2014 Sonata
2011-2022 Tucson
2012-2017, 2019-2021 Veloster
If you own a Kia, enter your VIM on their site below and it'll tell you if it's vulnerable. I just checked my 2012 Sportage - it has an electronic keyfob start so it's OK.
Baltimore has a police force out of their control (it's in state hands) but they still have to pay for it. This has resulted in massive retention and recruitment issues, and some of the cops who did stick around were on the take -- specifically the Gun Trace Task Force, home of the locally-famous Jump Out Boys.
Baltimore is an independent city, so it can't rely on county assistance for anything. Furthermore, state law prevents Baltimore (and only Baltimore) from annexing suburbs to increase the tax base, which is how literally every city in America grows. This results in obvious financial problems, as the city cannot expand its income to keep up with costs of services to the impoverished people who remain after the exit of the steel industry and the tremendously reduced longshoreman cadre.
Into all of this, some asshole carmakers decided to sell machines which are ready theft targets, able to be started by anyone who can get their hands on a USB stick. The spike in thefts of these products has a material effect on police availability. Where is Baltimore supposed to get the funding to meet this increase in demand for city services? They can't annex taxable land. They can't control policing policies.
> Furthermore, state law prevents Baltimore (and only Baltimore) from annexing suburbs to increase the tax base
St. Louis is the other major independent city. The state doesn't restrict its ability to annex suburbs, but it hardly matters. It doesn't happen, anyway, and it almost certainly wouldn't in Baltimore, either. Who wants either city's problems?
I’m all for making cars harder to steal, but I don’t think constructing the problem as unsolvable and out of the cities hands is all that compelling either.
>Furthermore, state law prevents Baltimore (and only Baltimore) from annexing suburbs to increase the tax base, which is how literally every city in America grows.
they could start by shutting down the free car wash at president and fayette...
in all seriousness, this is a problem I've thought about a lot, and I have no idea what the answer is. baltimore has a lot of the building blocks for a wonderful place to live, but it is a deeply sick city.
it has infrastructure built for a million plus, but less than 600k actually living in the city limits and fewer than that paying any meaningful amount of taxes. and like you say, what tax base exists is fleeing across the county line every year.
it's a cool and affordable (for the east coast) city to live in through your mid to late twenties. but between the crime, high taxes that kick in early, and abysmal public school system, there's a very strong incentive to leave once you have kids and can't afford private school. while boring af, the county is simply way more appealing for middle to upper-middle income families, which ought to be the core of the tax base.
with BPD having utterly failed to earn trust with the community and a political class more interested in grandstanding and stuffing their own pockets than doing anything that might be called "governance", I really don't see how the city pulls out of this nosedive anytime soon.
In almost every republican-controlled state legislature they are pushing bills to do the same thing to their major cities, trying to put large metropolitan city police forces under state control.
It's a weird move from a party that claims to be about "small" government and local control.
They're so busy trying to "own" the libs that they have forgotten, or simply don't care, that those cities are usually generating tax revenue that supports the outlying rural areas.
Away from the story a bit, looking at the US from afar I see millions of people entering the US from the southern border - how is this expected to play out? Will these people fit fairly easily into the economy, or will they likely be resorting to crime to get by?
As a lifelong Texan, my instinctual answer is that Hispanic immigrants tend to be really industrious and entrepreneurial. Obviously there are exceptions, but I think they’ll be fine for the most part and their kids will do really well.
It's pretty sad to see one of the deeply democratic voting cities, with no opposition to blame, start to use companies as their scapegoat for crime.
The sad part is their voter base will somehow think any alternative ideas that lean even
a bit to the right of their radical left policies is too extreme and that the status quo of double digit homicide and poverty levels unseen in almost any other city are preferred.
Get a good look at the root of the issue in America. It's found in Baltimore and san Francisco.
[+] [-] aardvarkr|2 years ago|reply
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.”
[+] [-] nicenewtemp84|2 years ago|reply
Thieves got into it and tried extremely hard to force the ignition and steal it. They tried hammering a flat head into it and rotating. Didn't work. They tried grabbing the outside of the mechanism with some kind of pliers and rotate, and that didn't work. I can see they easily spent several minutes on the whole ordeal, and didn't get anywhere. The entire lock mechanism was destroyed, almost shaved smaller from how many times they tried and their pliers slipped.
When I got to it a few days later, I had to get home using that truck. I put the key in the ignition and turned it, and drove off.
[+] [-] whitej125|2 years ago|reply
No.
After 5 minutes of searching you see that a USB-A connector just happens to fit perfectly over the nub in the ignition and allows you to turn it.
The problem is there is no engine immobilizer. So you can start the engine just by physically turning the ignition. I thought EI was pretty much standard on all cars post late 90's.
[+] [-] trafficante|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tgsovlerkhgsel|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|2 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] fullstop|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ravensfan69|2 years ago|reply
Many others I know have had cars broken into, homes broken into, tons of packages stolen, property vandalized, etc. Basically any form of property crime you can imagine.
The idea that Hyundai or Kia are somehow culpable for these this extreme social dysfunction is absolutely farcical. Vagrants and criminals are kept like livestock by the local government and a class of parasitic NGOs- left to terrorize normal law-abiding citizens who barely have a legal recourse to violence should one of these incidents go sideways.
It would take Ra's al Ghul to resolve the problems of this city
[+] [-] elif|2 years ago|reply
One of my neighbors has a recent kia that is not susceptible to these hacks, and 2 weeks ago witnessed these teens trying to steal her car one night. She went out and told them they were on camera, and they threatened her and kept trying to steal the car. She called the police who came later and explained steering wheel locks and did little else. The next night the same teens came back, and this time having learned about the details, went out and informed them that her car was not susceptible. They continued trying, damaging the ignition with a screwdriver but not stealing it. The third night in a row, she left a note explaining it in the window, which did not deter them but cause them to bust out the window with the note taped on it.
The city is now distributing steering wheel locks for free to any kia owners, but they have caused a local shortage and can no longer offer them.
I've had neighbors waiting for their appointment to have the ignition modified have their cars totaled.
If you street park your car, even if it isn't a kia, you have high odds of being side swiped by one of these kids on purpose.
It's not a car theft issue, it's a legal joyride and clout exercise. You are lucky if your city is still only experiencing car theft and not this new form of car terrorism.
[+] [-] aksss|2 years ago|reply
From the outside, the policies seem to defy all common sense. Doubling down on bad policy seems like foolishness, naivety, denial, complicity, or AOTA. When the plane's computer is saying 'terrain.', 'terrain.', at what point do you decide to pull up, and what does that even look like in Balitmore? The complexity of Baltimore's problems brings out the defeatist in anyone, but I think there are some obvious starting points.
It reminds me of C.S. Lewis's statement about progress:
"Progress means getting nearer to the place you want to be. And if you have taken a wrong turn, then to go forward does not get you any nearer.
If you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; and in that case the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man."
Nearer to what are Baltimore's leader's trying to get?
[+] [-] qchris|2 years ago|reply
This kind of thing has resounding consequences. Baltimore is a city with a complicated history; for one thing, it's down from it's peak of almost 1M people to under 600k [4]. There's a significant history of racism in Maryland at large. There's a lot of fundamental issues, ranging from food deserts to lack of public transportation among the poorer areas. But to say that "[I]t would take Ra's al Ghul to resolve the problems of this city" is not true. It's certainly not all sunshine and roses, there's a lot of work being done at the grassroots as well, from new local investigative news organizations like the Baltimore Banner being funded to small makerspaces being set up in the now-plentiful well-built, but unused buildings that cities like Boston or Washington, DC. would only dream about having near their harbor or highways, and it's unfair to dismiss these things as being worthless.
[1] https://baltimorefishbowl.com/stories/baltimore-officials-co...
[2] https://www.wbaltv.com/article/baltimore-city-control-police...
[3] https://www.thebaltimorebanner.com/politics-power/local-gove...
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltimore#Demographics (other sources available)
[+] [-] mrbonner|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thejarren|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gjsman-1000|2 years ago|reply
Yes, yes, I know that Hyundai and Kia vehicles are easy pickings, but they talk as though “those vehicles are easy to steal, so those teenagers, they just felt so compelled to…” Nobody forces somebody to steal a car. If anti-theft prevents a car theft, consider that is still someone who had intent to steal a vehicle if it were possible.
[+] [-] klodolph|2 years ago|reply
This is like selling one of those old Kryptonite locks that could be defeated with a Bic pen. At that point, the lock is truly defective, and should be pulled from the market. Your lock should require something more than a readily-available, vaguely key-shaped object to operate—so if you can operate the lock with a Bic pen (like the old Kryptonite locks) or a USB charging cable (like the new Kias), the lock is defective.
[+] [-] digdugdirk|2 years ago|reply
Maybe to put in software terms - a login page that allowed anyone to sign in to any account by viewing source and finding an admin login button sitting there for anyone to see.
It truly is a flawed design. Yes, a design that might not be flawed for many societies around the world, but it's certainly flawed for a product that is sold in the USA.
[+] [-] op00to|2 years ago|reply
Think about it this way: no one forces a kid to jump into a pool and drown, but if you have a pool without a fence completely surrounding it and the kid does just that, you are liable for the damages by creating an attractive nuisance. Hyundai created the situation of easily stolen cars by not "building the fence around their pool".
[+] [-] qup|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Ekaros|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|2 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] vanilla_nut|2 years ago|reply
If you do manage to track down your car, you won't get a timely enough response from the police to hold folks who stole it accountable. Most of the time they'll simply claim that they procured the car from someone else, and the police don't push the issue. Same with bicycle theft.
[+] [-] digdugdirk|2 years ago|reply
This design truly is flawed. Traditionally, the immobilizer in an ignition system is physically tied to the steering column. Basically, you'd need to remove the steering column (the physical pipe that goes between your steering wheel and the front steering rack) in order to remove the part. If you want to defeat that immobilizer, you need to do a massive amount of damage to the mechanism, and that damage usually destroys the electronics that register the correct key being put into the ignition switch. This is more or less a self-reinforcing security feature, since the car wont start without this electronic signal.
Kia/Hyundai decided to just tack a little immobilizer module on without integrating it into the steering column, and they didn't even do a decent job mechanically securing it to the column from the outside. That means you can jam a screwdriver in there and pop the "security" mechanism off. Once that's gone, you're left with a little (conveniently USB sized) nub that can be turned which will immediately start the car. No muss, no fuss, no recognition that it's missing its immobilizer module.
Its a fundamentally flawed design, and it never should have made it past review.
[+] [-] jMyles|2 years ago|reply
Probably fair, according to the anecdata collected in my travels in life so far. This view of the US seems common, almost consensus.
> he thinks they are far too low and want them increased more
This part, I don't think is typical (or even widespread) among Americans, and I don't see it expressly endorsed by ravensfan69 - seems like you are presuming it.
It seems to me that, by very far, the common American sentiment is, "our justice system has failed, and the focus on incarceration has made crime worse instead of better."
On the other hand, many types of crime - especially violent crime - have fallen in my lifetime in the US, in concert with much of the rest of the world.
But yeah, we Americans don't like prisons and we know damn well that our state is just building them as an end-around to achieve a plantation economy. We're not stupid.
[+] [-] TurkishPoptart|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ineedasername|2 years ago|reply
I should launch a lawsuit against the contractor who built my house because even though the doors have locks a third can break in with nothing more than a rock and some willingness to maybe get cut on shattered glass
[+] [-] pfannkuchen|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] g42gregory|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] poorbutdebtfree|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] r00fus|2 years ago|reply
Kia/Hyundai need to fix their security flaw.
[+] [-] tzs|2 years ago|reply
Baltimore may not be a large market, but there are also several other cities suing, and at least 18 state attorney generals have gotten involved. That's a much larger market than Baltimore.
[+] [-] mensetmanusman|2 years ago|reply
Maybe they should implement car burkas?
[+] [-] hinkley|2 years ago|reply
I'm also still a little disappointed that the MSRP came out about 10% higher than the estimates. We're getting into too much money for a car there.
[+] [-] shrx|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shrx|2 years ago|reply
> Hyundai is offering a free software update to prevent thefts on certain targeted vehicles, starting Tuesday on nearly 4 million Hyundais on the road. The first million eligible cars are 2017 to 2020 Elantra, 2015 to 2019 Sonata and 2020 to 2021 Venue vehicles. Affected owners can bring in the car to Hyundai dealerships for the free anti-theft upgrade. It takes about an hour to install. Once updated a window decal will (hopefully) alert and deter thieves from targeting the vehicle.
> The next batch of eligible vehicles will go in for the software update in June and includes a long list of Kia models, including:
[1] https://www.thedrive.com/news/these-hyundai-and-kia-models-a...[2] https://www.forbes.com/wheels/news/kia-hyundai-car-thefts-se...
[+] [-] russellbeattie|2 years ago|reply
https://ksupport.kiausa.com/ConsumerAffairs/SWLD
[+] [-] khm|2 years ago|reply
Baltimore is an independent city, so it can't rely on county assistance for anything. Furthermore, state law prevents Baltimore (and only Baltimore) from annexing suburbs to increase the tax base, which is how literally every city in America grows. This results in obvious financial problems, as the city cannot expand its income to keep up with costs of services to the impoverished people who remain after the exit of the steel industry and the tremendously reduced longshoreman cadre.
Into all of this, some asshole carmakers decided to sell machines which are ready theft targets, able to be started by anyone who can get their hands on a USB stick. The spike in thefts of these products has a material effect on police availability. Where is Baltimore supposed to get the funding to meet this increase in demand for city services? They can't annex taxable land. They can't control policing policies.
What would you do?
[+] [-] dionidium|2 years ago|reply
St. Louis is the other major independent city. The state doesn't restrict its ability to annex suburbs, but it hardly matters. It doesn't happen, anyway, and it almost certainly wouldn't in Baltimore, either. Who wants either city's problems?
[+] [-] maeil|2 years ago|reply
That is for American politics to figure out. This is an American political issue and blaming Korean car makers is absurd.
[+] [-] IceHegel|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] scoofy|2 years ago|reply
Not doing that is a very good thing in the long run: https://www.strongtowns.org/
[+] [-] leetcrew|2 years ago|reply
in all seriousness, this is a problem I've thought about a lot, and I have no idea what the answer is. baltimore has a lot of the building blocks for a wonderful place to live, but it is a deeply sick city.
it has infrastructure built for a million plus, but less than 600k actually living in the city limits and fewer than that paying any meaningful amount of taxes. and like you say, what tax base exists is fleeing across the county line every year.
it's a cool and affordable (for the east coast) city to live in through your mid to late twenties. but between the crime, high taxes that kick in early, and abysmal public school system, there's a very strong incentive to leave once you have kids and can't afford private school. while boring af, the county is simply way more appealing for middle to upper-middle income families, which ought to be the core of the tax base.
with BPD having utterly failed to earn trust with the community and a political class more interested in grandstanding and stuffing their own pockets than doing anything that might be called "governance", I really don't see how the city pulls out of this nosedive anytime soon.
[+] [-] dgfitz|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] KennyBlanken|2 years ago|reply
It's a weird move from a party that claims to be about "small" government and local control.
They're so busy trying to "own" the libs that they have forgotten, or simply don't care, that those cities are usually generating tax revenue that supports the outlying rural areas.
[+] [-] georgeplusplus|2 years ago|reply
But yeah let's blame carmarkers for shitty behavior by one of the worst cities in the country.
[+] [-] darig|2 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] gweinberg|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] archsurface|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] horns4lyfe|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] softwaredoug|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] georgeplusplus|2 years ago|reply
The sad part is their voter base will somehow think any alternative ideas that lean even a bit to the right of their radical left policies is too extreme and that the status quo of double digit homicide and poverty levels unseen in almost any other city are preferred.
Get a good look at the root of the issue in America. It's found in Baltimore and san Francisco.