Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Baltimore sues Hyundai, Kia over spike in car thefts

thebaltimorebanner.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 670 posts

Re: Baltimore sues Hyundai, Kia over spike in car thefts

#221

Post by typeofhuman »

linksnapzz wrote: post #137
krisoft wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You prevent theft by putting theives in jail. This is such an incredible naive view of the world. Whether or not crimes are committed is a complicated interplay of cost/benefit. You say that the city is acting as if thieves are some force of nature. And to a certain extent they are. If it is easy enough to commit a crime and the reward is high enough a crime will be committed. As an example if you leave gold bars l…

I notice that jewelers and goldsmiths in Riyadh have nowhere near the level of secure access controls, nor the type and amount of reinforced display cases that you see in Chicago or NYC. Likewise, I can leave a $4000 macbook on a table in a bar in the cheapest neighborhood in Saitama, and not have it walk off if I step outside for a smoke. Why do you suppose this is? What is happening there, that isn't happening in B…

[flagged]

Re: Baltimore sues Hyundai, Kia over spike in car thefts

#222

Post by plagiarist »

macinjosh wrote: post #164
hoofhearted wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s a little early to be drinking isn’t it? The city is suing to recover the money they spent on all the police efforts expended because Kia cut corners to reduce costs.

Schwinn does nothing to stop bicycle thefts. Let’s sue them too!

If a Schwinn-branded bicycle lock is so easily broken that the majority of thefts are from opening those locks, why not?

Re: Baltimore sues Hyundai, Kia over spike in car thefts

#223

Post by swearwolf »

Convolutional wrote: post #185

I should point out to those not from the US that 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. It is up voted to the top as well, with agreement in the replies, this is how Americans view the US. The US incarcerates more people than China, despite China having more than four times as many people, but the view obviously is the incarceration ra…

1.) Though this is becoming an increasingly popular viewpoint in many of the American cities that are experiencing these problems right now, it’s far from universally held.

2.) The U.S. is not a monolith, so looking at the prison population of the United States as a whole doesn’t tell you about what’s going on in an individual state or city.

3.) The number of people incarcerated has a long tail. In the U.S. in particular, many people received long sentences during the years following the ‘94 crime bill. Little if any effort is being made to commute these despite policies centered on new incarceration changing.

4.) In the places where reduced incarceration is being tried in the U.S. it’s important to recognize that it’s being tried effectively in a vacuum. In many other places which are able to sustain low incarceration rates, there are a lot of social programs that help make that possible, and also programs to help people rehabilitate after a conviction. The U.S. has little if any of that. Where reduced incarceration is being tried, it’s usually not replaced with something that’s more effective.

Re: Baltimore sues Hyundai, Kia over spike in car thefts

#224

Post by carabiner »

pySSK wrote: post #209
lordloki wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China has literal concentration camps and prisoner organ harvesting. I don't think your comparison means much.

[flagged]

The US has very similar camps in the form of forced labor (i.e. slavery) by prisoners. These slaves have built products in the US that many of us have used, including clothes and office furniture. They make 63 cents per hour - make no mistake, they are slaves.

Re: Baltimore sues Hyundai, Kia over spike in car thefts

#225

Post by erichocean »

alistairSH wrote: post #156
sithadmin wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While that would definitely be a problem, that's the end-user's/customer's problem. It would be appropriate for a Hyundai/Kia buyer to sue Hyundai/Kia for damages experienced because of such a thing. It doesn't make sense for a municipality to sue here - they're not a party with a stake in the ostensibly defective product.

But the city is expending resources (police, mostly) so there is damage.

Yes, and the city taxes its residents to pay for the police—the same residents who bought the cars requiring more police involvement.

It's a self-correcting problem, no lawsuit required.

The city could even have a special tax on "cars without immobilizers" that Kia owners paid, to cover their costs. Again: no lawsuit required.

Re: Baltimore sues Hyundai, Kia over spike in car thefts

#226

Post by kevinthew »

ravensfan69 wrote: post #139

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…

There is data on the Kia/Hyundai problem that is unique to these makes because they cut corners on safety features that are standard across industry -- I don't know why your anecdote of people getting carjacked is relevant at all?

Re: Baltimore sues Hyundai, Kia over spike in car thefts

#227

Post by michaelt »

ryandrake wrote: post #173
henryfjordan wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You cannot make something that you know will cause a nuisance. You cannot, for instance, sell fireworks only between 1-3am in the middle of a neighborhood and act surprised when the neighbors are mad at you because kids are setting them off all night. It was absolutely predictable that these cars would be stolen and that the police would have to deal with the fallout. Just because there's no explicit law does not mea…

Yea, I'm really surprised at all this defense of these corporations. They produced and sold a defective product, which is causing monetary damages to cities as they need to deal with the predictable exploit of that defect. I'm sure the city is prepared to show that these damages are a result of the companies' negligence. If I owned one of these defective cars, I'd also be keen on participating in a lawsuit against th…

> Yea, I'm really surprised at all this defense of these corporations.

Well, the government does already set a bunch of standards for cars.

And before the car leaves the factory, it's fine for the government to be issuing mandatory standards for lights, spare parts, seatbelts, crash safety, pedestrian protection, fuel economy and so on.

But the government having a second, secret set of requirements? That can change without anyone being notified? To me that seems rather irregular.

Re: Baltimore sues Hyundai, Kia over spike in car thefts

#228

Post by op00to »

local_crmdgeon wrote: post #217
hoofhearted wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apples to oranges lol

How? Bikes are easier to steal and sell, and we don't see them being sued. The logic is the same.

If there were a bicycle manufacturer that knowingly made its bikes easier to steal and sell, AND those bicycles when stolen were linked to numerous horrific collisions resulting in death and major injury of innocent parties, then there might be a comparison.

Re: Baltimore sues Hyundai, Kia over spike in car thefts

#229

Post by simfree »

pySSK wrote: post #209
lordloki wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China has literal concentration camps and prisoner organ harvesting. I don't think your comparison means much.

[flagged]

Sending most of the citizens below retirement age of a province to concentration camps certainly seems like a normalized practice in China today.

It was wrong when we did the same here in the USA with Japanese Americans (George Takei wrote about his time there) and we should not normalize this mass imprisonment without individual right to fair trial.

Re: Baltimore sues Hyundai, Kia over spike in car thefts

#230

Post by Fezzik »

pySSK wrote: post #209
lordloki wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China has literal concentration camps and prisoner organ harvesting. I don't think your comparison means much.

[flagged]

The way the Chinese government talks about things tends to not be that accurate. The Uyghurs are not terrorists. They are an ethnic minority that is being terrorized and subjected to genocide by the Chinese government.

Edit: spelling

Post reply on HN