OnStar's New Anti-Theft Device - Stupid.

OnStar is going to start putting their new anti-theft device into the latest cars with OnStar capabilities: The Stolen Vehicle Slowdown. What happens is if they get a report of a stolen vehicle with this feature they will cut off the car's use of the gas pedal. The car will not be able to accelerate at all and will steadily get slower and slower. There are a couple problems, however. The first is that there are only two ways to get your Slowdown request granted: A police request or if a child has been accidentally kidnapped because the thief thought the vehicle was empty. Now those are good reasons to grant the request but its very stupid because these are the ONLY ways to get the Slowdown to process. Also there is the procedure. To get the slowdown activated, the owner must first report it stolen to the police. Then they must call OnStar and request a Slowdown. Then instead of actually slowing the vehicle down they will first give the police a GPS tracking location and the police have to get there and have the vehicle in sight and be able to confirm its stolen before OnStar will slow it down. Then the cops arrest the car thief. This whole thing is stupid. Because first if a child has not been kidnapped then I need to have a police request to activate the slowdown and the odds of having a police officer nearby to make the request are slim. Then you have to put through a complete stolen vehicle report and request the service from OnStar. Then you have to hope the police catch up to your stolen car (Which they might not.) and be sure its stolen (God forbid the guy driving like a maniac inside the car who is clearly not you be hint enough.). And then after all this has been done the service will only at that point be engaged. This won't work because there's too much procedure and not enough action. The OnStar Stolen Vehicle Locater just tells where your car is then you can tell the police and they'll go get it. Done. That's a much simpler process if you ask me and it already exists and works well. So therefore the OnStar Stolen Vehicle Slowdown is a really, really dumb idea.

http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9794998-7.html