Winnipeg Demands Immobilizers on High-Risk Cars

mytrip writes with a Reuters article about a new, unusual insurance requirement for drivers in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Apparently Winnipeg is one of the worst cities in Canada for auto thefts. New and 'high-risk' cars will now be required to install an electronic immobilizers in order to qualify for car insurance. "Chomiak said cars are stolen twice as often in Winnipeg as in other Manitoba cities, while a 2005 report from Statistics Canada said the city had a higher per-capita car theft rate than larger cities like Vancouver, Montreal and Toronto. The province, where cars are insured through Manitoba Public Insurance, will fork over C$15 million ($14 million) so that owners without immobilizers can have them installed."

So?

[G-funk (22712)]

How can this not be a requirement? In Australia it's been that way for ages, and all new cars have to have immobilizers fitted.

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[borizz (1023175)]

Same here. It's not an option, it just comes with the car. Just like steering lock.

Ah well, if the insurer pays for it and it keeps your car that bit more safe, why not do it?

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[bhtooefr (649901)]

Except when the immo loses programming... and except when you need a new key, and the dealer forces you to go there at the tune of (at least in the US, for Volkswagen) $300...

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[terrymr (316118)]

Yup ... the car I bought about 12 years ago in England had one. It wasn't an optional feature.

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[davester666 (731373)]

This totally infringes on the rights of car thiefs. Thiefs have to eat too!

Yup, they work...but the problem remains

[Bearhouse (1034238)]

From the UK 'Home Office', "Since 1997, vehicle crime has fallen by 51%. Despite this, according to the British Crime Survey there were 1,731,000 vehicle crimes during 2005-06".

The downside is that if you have a high-value car, criminals now either break into your house to get the keys, or hijack you. My brother-in-law used to drive an Audi RS4, (with the BMW M5, the vehicle of choice for bank and smash and grab crimes). After the SECOND time he and his wife were threatened with knives and beaten, (in the centre of a major city each time), he replaced it with something rather more modest...

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[bhtooefr (649901)]

Nothing stops you from badging the RS4 as a 1.9TDI, and such. Making it not look like an RS4. (Although, you're not hiding those fender flares...)

Naive

[12ahead (586157)]

First thought: electronic immobilizers - why bother? Isn't the way to steal cars these days with a laptop to reprogram all the systems so that the actual think actually drives? How difficult would it be to bypass the immobilizer? Seems to me that they could spend the $14m on installing CCTV or having more police on the street.

ahem... This is the Anti-Libertarian discussion forum, right?

Re:Naive

[borizz (1023175)]

Yes, you might be able to hack around the immobilizer. However, you'd need some hardware and knowledge to do that. It raises the barrier of entry, so less cars will get stolen (that's all the insurer cares about).

Re:Naive

[timmarhy (659436)]

whats your logic there sunshine? we can't 100% stop car thieft so do nothing about it at all? immobilizers make it hellish hard to steal a car compared to one without. it stops the normal method which is smash a window and rip out the ignition wires and cross them.

the vast majority of theifts are punks stealing a car for a joy ride, they aren't bright enough or organised enough to have a laptop on hand to hack the cars electrical systems.

the only cars that might be targeted by professional gangs would be expensive or hard to get cars they can resell, and if you have one of those then you've most likely got state of the art alarms anyway.

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[Mr. Freeman (933986)]

That doesn't work. You obviously don't actually have any knowledge of how a car works or how car thieves steal cars.

The steering column has a lock that you have to somehow break. Also, what wires do you cross? Are you expecting to open a panel to find two neatly stripped ends of wire laying about ready for you to touch them and override the ignition system?

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[delt0r (999393)]

Are you expecting to open a panel to find two neatly stripped ends of wire laying about ready for you to touch them and override the ignition system?

In some older cars. Yep. I kept losing my keys. I was always surprised by how easy it was. Also I think that you missed the point. The poster is hardly going to give a 3 point attack plan for cars without immobilizer. The point is that is much *harder* with one installed.

Re:Naive

[Jah-Wren Ryel (80510)]

the vast majority of theifts are punks stealing a car for a joy ride, they aren't bright enough or organised enough to have a laptop on hand to hack the cars electrical systems. the only cars that might be targeted by professional gangs would be expensive or hard to get cars they can resell,

You obviously don't know a thing about car theft, except perhaps what you've seen in the movies.
Here's the top-ten list of most stolen cars [statefarm.com] in the USA for 2005:

1. 1991 Honda Accord
   
2. 1995 Honda Civic
   
3. 1989 Toyota Camry
   
4. 1994 Dodge Caravan
   
5. 1994 Nissan Sentra
   
6. 1997 Ford F150 Series
   
7. 1990 Acura Integra
   
8. 1986 Toyota Pickup
   
9. 1993 Saturn SL
   
10. 2004 Dodge Ram Pickup

Professional car theft is ALL about the used-parts markets - stolen cars invariable end up in chop shops and sold for parts. The biggest market for car parts isn't going to be high-end one in a million models, it is the mom and pop with a million on the road models.

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[zenyu (248067)]

3. 1989 Toyota Camry

This may explain why my 89 Camry has been broken into three times in the last year. It never has anything valuable in it and has a 3rd party immobilizer, but it's still $75 & 20 minutes of my time get the right rear window replaced each time it happens. Maybe next year they will move on to the 1990 Camry. :)

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[deniable (76198)]

Most immobilisers here are ignition/fuel pump/whatever locks. They are auto-activating. You have to deactivate them to start the engine. There's not a lot of opportunity for mischief.

Anyone want to give details

[Kadin2048 (468275)]

Anyone out there familiar enough with the systems involved to describe exactly what they're trying to mandate?

Most new cars I've bought in the past 8 years or so have had systems that prevent the engine from starting if the car doesn't handshake with a microchip in the ignition key shank. (However, contrary to what some people apparently believe, they don't make the cars impossible to steal, of course.) Is this what they're talking about? I can't imagine it would be easy to retrofit one on a car that doesn'

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[onosson (1107107)]

To address one of your comments - Manitoba Public Insurance pays the entire cost of the immobilizer, and provides a discount on your premium once you have it installed. Also, it seems that most of the vehicle theft here in Winnipeg is by youth taking the cars on joyrides, so the electronic bypass methods are probably not a big issue. And Winnipeg is FAR from any other major cities (Minneapolis is the closest large city - almost 800 kms away!) so I don't think thieves are going to be going cross-border as

Re:Anyone want to give details

[jimicus (737525)]

Immobilisers have been a legal requirement for all cars in the UK for nearly 10 years now. Generally, they're the "microchip in the ignition key" type you describe.

And no, they're not impossible to work around - otherwise anytime someone lost their keys they'd have to write off their car - but they involve more work than your average teenage joyrider is prepared to put in.

This has led to a number of alternate attack vectors being used for car theft:

1. Steal the keys first then the car from the owners driveway. Easy enough if they leave the keys in a bowl by the front door.
2. Carjacking. (Oh wonderful, we've replaced the essentially non-violent crime of car theft with the rather more violent crime of carjacking)
3. Steal an older car.

You occasionally hear of more sophisticated things going on - like showing up in an official-looking tow truck and lifting the vehicle, with a view to sorting out "how to start the damn thing" at leisure - but that's pretty rare.

Re:Naive

[compro01 (777531)]

How difficult would it be to bypass the immobilizer

presumablely harder than smashing the window and hot-wiring it.

Save you clicking through to the 'article'

[niceone (992278)]

Here's the only thing that wasn't in the summary:

Most "high-risk" vehicles will include those on the top of the province's most-stolen list.

Well, there's also a sentence or two from the Attorney General - he thinks this will stop the devastation caused by joy-riding, but you could have guessed that.

Eh?

[Tim_UWA (1015591)]

What kind of an idiot is willing to pay however much per year to insure their car, but not willing to pay a measly $80 once-off for an immobiliser?

Plus, I'd much rather have my car not stolen than have an insurance company give me money when it is stolen. Especially considering the headache you have to go through in order to get it.

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[ArsonSmith (13997)]

This is great until your name ends up on the Canadian Intelligence Agencies "Do not drive list"

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[onosson (1107107)]

I'm from Winnipeg, and actually Manitoba Public Insurance pays the entire cost of the immobilizer for the high-risk vehicles, so it's not even a cost issue. Plus, you get a discount on your annual insurance for having it installed as well. I got mine immediately when the program started, it's only saved me money.

Actually, government insurance works quite well

[Rix (54095)]

In fact, for profit insurance is stuck in a fundamental conflict of interest; they will be most successful by finding ways to weasel out of their obligations. Government insurance, on the other hand, is beholden to the voters, and doesn't embezzle premiums off into profit. Further, it greatly simplifies the system. If there's an accident, there's only one party to make payments, not 2 or more who will fight about who should pay what percent.

A well regulated market has many useful places in society, but financial services is not one of them.

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[geminidomino (614729)]

I always thought it was kind of fucked up here in the US that Auto insurance was required, but not government provided, at least as an option.

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[Umbral Blot (737704)]

There is one downside: because they aren't trying to make as much money as possible the government is less motivated to single out people at higher risk for increased premiums (and thus lowering the premiums of everyone else so as to better compete). This means that while on average everyone would still play the same the risker drivers would generally end up paying less for insurance while the safer drivers would end up paying more.

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[Umbral Blot (737704)]

OK, I'll spell it out for you. If the government were to control all the insurance then they would have no motivation not to just charge everyone a fixed price. It cuts down on the paperwork for them, and they can pick that price so that they break even. The only reason insurance prices now are currently sensitive to things like past accidents (and smoking in the case of life insurance) is that companies realize that by charging the fewer high risk customers more they can charge the rest of their custome

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[NoMaster (142776)]

I was going to mod you +1 Insightful, but you left out the actual option the insurance companies choose:

The insurance companies realise that by charging the fewer higher-risk customers more, they can charge the rest of their customers fractionally less. Thus, the insurance company makes more money, attracts more customers, and responsible people end up playing almost as much as they would anyway!

In other words, insurance companies are screwing you either way - regardless of whether your a chain-smoking

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[JonathanR (852748)]

I know a guy who did this with his extended family. He said it's amazing how driving attitudes and general care changed when the insured were also the (significant) "shareholders". Additionally, during the time he had this arrangement in operation, they actually ended up with so much money they decided to distribute dividends.

This was in Australia, where the insurance scope was for the insured vehicle and third party property damage. Third party injury etc is covered under a compulsory basis, usually pai

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[TheLink (130905)]

"charging the fewer high risk customers more they can charge the rest of their customers less" "This is a text-book example of how free markets can accomplish good things."

But is it actually cheaper or not? Do they actually charge the rest of their customers less?

After all another poster said: "You might think so, but Manitoba has one of the lowest overall insurance rates in the whole country"

To be fair we will have to factor in any public money the Government puts in or takes out from the insurance scheme.

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[Ironsides (739422)]

We call them cooperatives here. I personally think cooperatives tend to be better for _everyone_ (customers, society) as a whole.

Seconded. Although, I don't get why they are more common here in the USA. (Are you in Canada or another country?) It's easy to find them here.

But you don't get mega payouts here. In fact, the stingy bunch don't even give you full resale value of your car (they do something like go through classifieds and look for the cheaper prices for that model - not exactly I guess but

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[ameoba (173803)]

Whereas a for-profit insurance company simultaneously tries to deny high-risk drivers coverage while raising everyone else's premiums as high as possible while still staying competitive.

I'm reminded of how, in the late-90s, the insurance companies in Washington state lobbied to place restrictions on young drivers (age 16-18) claiming that these restrictions would result in far fewer accidents. They got the law passed and, as expected, teenagers got in less accidents. They never mentioned that they had no

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[Umbral Blot (737704)]

Then I guess classical economic analysis has failed us in this case (someone should go write a journal article on why). Possibly the people of Manitoba are unusually safe drivers? Or maybe getting rid of the overhead saved enough money to cancel out the other effects?

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[Trepalium (109107)]

Well, the reason we have low insurance premiums is not so much that MPIC is efficient, but rather the fact that huge cash awards are not given out by MPIC. If you get into an accident, you'll get your repairs paid for (or your car written off), and perhaps some medical expenses paid, but you won't pocket a few million for your "emotional trauma". On the upside, some of the most common insurance scams that is often pulled in places with private insurance just don't happen here. And, no, we're not unusuall

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[Umbral Blot (737704)]

So in a sense the insurance companies are also competing with each other to give the biggest payouts, the most coverage. And this thus drives insurance premiums up. So while the competition gives better drivers better premiums it leads to everyone having higher premiums in order to benefit those who actually get into accidents more. But of course this doesn't really tell us which is better now. Is it better to have low premiums but low payouts, or higher premiums and higher payouts (government monopoly

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[Somnus (46089)]

I'd rather have insurers compete for my business, rather than the gov't mandating what security-related features should or should not come with my vehicle.

Also:

A well regulated market has many useful places in society, but financial services is not one of them.

What does this mean? Should the gov't provide securities brokerage, or financial instruments like loans or annuities?

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[kjart (941720)]

As an inhabitant of Winnipeg, I can add some anecdotal evidence. Yearly insurance for my fairly new car is $1500 (this is with a $200 deductible, loss of use coverage and fairly high liability coverage as well). From what I've heard, in Ontario (which is not public insurance) I would be paying 2-3 times as much for the same coverage.

Also, for the past couple years (if I'm remembering correctly) Manitoba Public Insurance has issued rebates - I got about $120 back from last year. Not a lot, but I don't thin

I had to...

[Cyno01 (573917)]

Look up WTF an immobilizer was. Then again i dont think i've ever driven a car built within the last 8 years.

I'm almost torn...

[Ibag (101144)]

On one hand, if people are required to have insurance, this is essentially forcing them to buy a product, which doesn't seem like a fair thing for the consumers. In that respect, I want to say that maybe there is room to disagree with the decision. On the other hand, if car theft rates are so high, the only realistic options for the insurance companies is to either make people take steps to lower their risk or to raise the rates to compensate for the increased risk. In the end, it boils down to the fact

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[kjart (941720)]

On one hand, if people are required to have insurance, this is essentially forcing them to buy a product, which doesn't seem like a fair thing for the consumers.

FYI, most people can get them installed for free (MPI, the insurance 'company', pays for them) and having one installed will lower the cost of your insurance.

Old cars had them...

[Bazman (4849)]

All old (non-diesel) cars had engine immobilizers. You popped the top off the distributor cap and took the rotor arm out. How many joy riders carried a selection of spare parts with them? Ah, the joy of analogue tech.

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[Inoshiro (71693)]

It's a lot easier to take the ignition coil wire off of older cars (you don't need a screwdriver). Newer cars, while distributor-less, still have easy-to-remove wires linking the electrical system to the spark plugs.

Personally, I find the best anti-theft method is simply to drive a car from the 1980s.

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[bhtooefr (649901)]

And on an old VW diesel, you take out the #1 glow plug and remove the wire for the fuel cutoff solenoid. Helps to take the X-relay with you, too, but that's hard to get to on some cars.

#1 glow plug removed: Easy to get to, means cylinder #4 has no compression.
Fuel cutoff solenoid wire removed: Keeps the fuel pump from delivering fuel - you get a sputter at best with it removed. Of course, you can always ride the starter
X-relay removed: Distributes power to the car. If they figure out that you unplugged the

Confused... about two aspects of that story.

[advocate_one (662832)]

why is the city mandating immobilisers? Surely it's the job of the insurance companies to raise the premiums for those cars without immobilisers. Then it's up to the owner to either buy a car with one fitted, or else pay for one to be fitted himself and benefit from the reduced premiums.

The city should NOT be getting involved... and why is there only one insurance company for that city anyway... that's weird. Is this some mandated monopoly and the others can't do business there?

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[satoshi1 (794000)]

It's Canada. Just... just ignore them. It's easier that way..

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[Hal The Computer (674045)]

Several (but not all) Canadian provinces have mandatory public auto insurances. It's a government monopoly.

A few people in Alberta, which has a private system, actually try to (illegally) take out insurance by claiming they live in Saskatchewan, which has a public system and lower rates. Of course, they get the lower rates by limiting your right to sue if you get involved in an accident. It is also, arguably, more efficient.

More information about Manitoba Public Insurance [mpi.mb.ca].

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[ari_j (90255)]

Maybe you missed that the name of that one and only insurance company for the entire province of Manitoba (not just for the city) is Manitoba Public Insurance. It's not only a mandatory monopoly, but as far as I'm aware it's fully owned and operated by the provincial government. (IANAC, although I spent 21 years of my life within hours of Winnipeg.)

Re:being someone from winnipeg

[Divebus (860563)]

Put immobilizers on the kids. It's called "jail".

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[deniable (76198)]

We did, but they broke out and stole cars to get home. They're good kids though. They dump the vehicle on someone else's lawn to keep their mums happy.

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[deniable (76198)]

I thought it was only required for transfer or new vehicles, not for current licenses. Actually, to quote the DPI: [wa.gov.au]

From July 1st 1999 it is compulsory to fit a Government approved immobiliser when you apply to register or transfer a vehicle. It is the buyer's responsibility (not the seller's) to ensure that this is done, otherwise the vehicle registration or transfer will not occur.

But, you're right. So what?