Do you want a right to repair?
Go back thirty years and vehicle theft rates were rising steadily every year. It seemed almost anyone with a wire coat-hanger and a screwdriver could open a car door and drive it away in under sixty seconds (if you believe the movie). Then there was a slow revolution as electronic keys and alarm systems came to be standard, fitted by the factories and released into the wild. Then as the GPS satellites were launched, it become possible to fit tracking devices that would enable the owners or law enforcement agencies to track a vehicle and recover it (assuming it had not already been broken for spares. The final development was the fitting of immobilizers. These devices added to the protection offered by electronic keys so that even if potential thieves accessed the wiring systems, they still could not drive the vehicle away. The results have been the steady fall in vehicle theft rates. Although some makes and models remain relatively easy to steal, the majority are now only vulnerable to the more professional thieves.
All this has left one problem. If the vehicle breaks down and the owner leaves the site with the key, how does the repair shop get into the vehicle to return it to the shop for repair? Obviously, it’s also necessary to be able to start the vehicle to diagnose the problem and test whether the repairs have been effective. To make this possible there’s a secure database system open to licensed repair shops, locksmiths, law enforcement agencies and any others who have a legitimate reason for needing to override the vehicle systems. This database contains full details of the all the key and PIN codes to reset the immobilizer and start the engine.
Let’s now move over the Massachusetts which has enacted a law requiring insurance companies to give automatic discounts to all owners who have anti-theft and vehicle-recovery systems in place. At their maximum level, this can reduce the premium rates by 35%. This makes Massachusetts one of the most affordable states in which to insure. On average, local drivers spend less than 3% of their net pay on vehicle insurance. Not surprisingly, the number of uninsured drivers is also low tending to prove the point that, if you make insurance affordable, the majority of people obey the mandate. That said, Massachusetts now proposes to add a “Right to Repair” Bill to its statute books. This would make the currently secure database more widely accessible. All the “authoritative” bodies in the policing and insurance industry are against this proposed law. They believe it will lead to the information about codes falling into the wrong hands and reverse the falling trend of vehicle theft, not just in Massachusetts, but nationally. It seems if the local codes can be studied, it would be possible to deduce a method for cracking the codes in other states. Read the rest of this entry »
