141–150 of 670 posts
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The bank is the customer in that case, and you could argue that they could sue, based on "assumptions about contract" or whatever. Baltimore didn't buy these cars.
I'm curious if a class action lawsuit for Kia and Hyundai customers would make more sense. I also wonder if auto insurance companies might refuse to insure Kia and Hyundai vehicles until this is fixed.
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Kia could sell their cars with a giant button that says "BYPASS LOCK AND START IGNITION WITHOUT KEY" and it still wouldn't be their fault, at all.
Also, this would be completely legal to sell. There’s no law requiring keys, or an immobilizer, or really any anti-theft technology. If you don’t like that, and I don’t, change the law. Don’t sue for something completely legal because it makes life inconvenient for a city. There is a long list of things cities find inconvenient, like bicycles without a built-in GPS, or even things as dumb as American flags in an upsc…
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…
Feels like the 70s in Urban America repeating itself. I feel bad for the older Black population in Baltimore. They busted ass for the last 50 years and they got to enjoy a really lovely city from like 2009 to 2013. Imagine growing up like Henrietta Lacks, only to have all your shit stolen by teenagers who are legally untouchable.
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Consider reading the article The concerns are valid >Certain Kia or Hyundai models can be stolen using a screwdriver and a USB charging cord. >Cleveland, St. Louis and Seattle are among the other cities that started suing the the car companies earlier this year. 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…
Nothing in the article nor the parts that you extracted establishes exactly why a municipality would have standing to sue a product manufacturer for damages, or why a manufacturer is somehow obligated to include features that a municipality deems to be 'standard'. The fact that there are consumer products whose absence of features creates a negative externality for local law enforcement doesn't seem like sufficient g…
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…
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I'm not a lawyer, but as I understand it, this sort of thing is generally based on a reasonable person standard. I.e. would a reasonable person assume that if their car requires a key to start, then it cannot be started with something as trivial as a USB key?
I keep hearing this vague claim that the cars can be started with a usb key. How does this work? Is there a usb port that reads some secret file off the USB key? Is it just the USB plug shape that fits somewhere in the car that forces it to turn on?
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 rat…
These lawsuits are part of a longstanding effort by cities and states to try and develop a theory of manufacturer legal accountability through public nuisance law, an effort that is perhaps morally laudable but legally fraught; to date, other than a few outlier environmental cases from the '70s, courts have almost uniformly declined to create a kind of parallel product-liability law through nuisance. While individual…
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Also, this would be completely legal to sell. There’s no law requiring keys, or an immobilizer, or really any anti-theft technology. If you don’t like that, and I don’t, change the law. Don’t sue for something completely legal because it makes life inconvenient for a city. There is a long list of things cities find inconvenient, like bicycles without a built-in GPS, or even things as dumb as American flags in an upsc…
> Don’t sue for something completely legal because it makes life inconvenient for a city. I don't understand this reasoning. The city believes there is already a law under which what the car manufacturer did is not legal. They and the car manufacturer will go in front of a judge where the city will need to prove this, while the lawyers of the car manufacturer will presumably argue otherwise. Should I be feeling bad f…
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 rat…
“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,” I'd like to see the data here. Is there any indication that the crime wouldn't be present in other areas of life? Would the people committing these crimes be law-abiding citizens if not for the temptation of these cars being easie…
Almost all crime is committed by a tiny, tiny group of people - in NYC, 327 people commit 1/3rd of all shoplifting. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/15/nyregion/shoplifting-arre...
We used to just warehouse people like this, and we stopped because that was mean and did not get us likes on Instagram.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not a lawyer, but as I understand it, this sort of thing is generally based on a reasonable person standard. I.e. would a reasonable person assume that if their car requires a key to start, then it cannot be started with something as trivial as a USB key?
I keep hearing this vague claim that the cars can be started with a usb key. How does this work? Is there a usb port that reads some secret file off the USB key? Is it just the USB plug shape that fits somewhere in the car that forces it to turn on?