So, picture this. You get the itch to start some chaos at around 3AM local time. You snatch up your stolen shotgun, load a few slugs in there and roll out with a mind to come home in a shiny new vehicle. As fate would have it, you choose to carjack a 2009 Chevy Tahoe, and while everything seems kosher at first (look, there's even a half-full bottle of Coke Zero over there!), the mighty V8 just seems to be struggling all of a sudden. As the horrifying reality sets in (you know, the one that involves the accelerator not functioning any longer), you're left with no choice but to curse OnStar's
Stolen Vehicle Slowdown feature, which has just nabbed its first-ever criminal. As the Tahoe slowly grinds to a halt, you make a fruitless dash and topple into a swimming pool before being apprehended soaking wet, and even though OnStar took just 16 minutes to return the vehicle to its rightful owner, at least you'll go down in history as the first one to fall victim to the system. Here's to you, unfortunate carjacker -- next time, go for a lawnmower. Humiliating video is after the break.
posted Oct 21st 2009 11:29AM
Looks like that guy needs to watch more Chevrolet commercials. Then he wouldn't have made this mistake!
Either that, or he should at least know to wait until the 3 month trial of OnStar expires... because how many people really keep paying for it after it expires?
I just wonder if they stopped paying, but police asked onstar to stop the vehicle what would happen...
If anything I think they would be MORE willing to stop your car if you stop paying them.
More people than there used to be now that this commercial is in the hands of dealerships nationwide.
Onstar is still usable even if you don't pay for it. I know because I've pushed the button when I didn't have a subscription and it still connects to them. I think it's more for life or death emergencies though and not for something like locking your keys in your car.
I'm sure that Onstar would cooperate with the police if the system were installed and the police were in pursuit regardless of the subscription status.
now thieves are gonna have to adapt their car jacking skills and learn to disable onstar (aka rip it out, or whatever)
all part of the evolution of crime
"now thieves are gonna have to adapt their car jacking skills and learn to disable onstar (aka rip it out, or whatever)
all part of the evolution of crime"
They would probably do that if they were stealing a parked car and had a few minutes on hand. Carjackers have to work fast and probably wouldn't have time to stop and rip it out.
You get the first year of OnStar for free. XM Radio is what you get the 3 month trial on.
lol i live in visalia! wow made it to engadget website!
Welcome to America son.
I grew up in Fresno. Liz Harrison isn't as cute as she was in the 80s and 90s. :)
Ya, but that Santaya Rose is friggin SMOKING!!
I also live in Visalia. Made me smile to see this too.
that you edmund?
Go Visalia! - I used to live off of Lover's Lane - I'm now sitting at a desk on the 31st floor in Times Square (NYC) and that I just saw this, complete with local Madera car dealership commercial, cracks me up.
Ha, I'm also for Visalia. Kinda sad that of anything it was our bad guys that get on slashdot....
Wow... way more Visalians here than I ever would have thought. Cool to see us featured nationally, but I'll still never own an Onstar equipped vehicle.
Ha! Owned by On-Star.
Owned-Star?
in this case, Pwn Star
On-Star, it takes away your horsepowers.
beat me to it
I don't know what is more sad, that he tried to steal a car and failed, or that he fell into a pool. I mean how someone falls into a pool is beyond me, what is he running with his eyes closed.
It was 3AM and he was a little distracted by all those cops I imagine.
Maybe he got confused and thought he was running from a swarm of bees?
He thought jumping into water would help him make a clean getaway.
GTA Fail.
rofl!
lmao
Should have stolen the Banchee
Niko Bellic: Start! you piece of crap! Come on... will you start??!!
he syood have called 911 and gor his car to start again
Wait... What's the shotgun used for?
It was a carjacking, the shotgun was to threaten the driver and passenger.
I think a pool float. . .
sawed off shotgun to carjack the vehicle. he put the gun on the driver and forced him and his passenger out, along with their wallets and valuables.
a hot high speed chase ending with a cool dip in a stranger's pool. what a great morning!
if you have to ask that, you would die in less than 3 seconds in a zombie apocalypse
Awesome.
How long until banks start using this to due their repo'ing for them?
They shouldn't need to. Why repo a moving car? It's much better to repo a car when the "owner" is no where to be seen.
They already use the locator ability of OnStar to find out where the vehicle is.
English Fail "do" not "due" I will use each in a sentence
Due: I sense your lack of intelligence due to the fact you're not using words properly.
Do : When I'm horny, I like to do your mom.
@Derrik
I put that there just for the grammar whiners. CONGRATULATIONS!
Oh, and due to the fact that if you are getting your rig repo'd you obviously have money due. *bow*
Actually you didn't put it there for "grammar whiners" as they wouldn't have anything to whine about considering it wasn't a grammar mistake - you used the wrong word altogether.
@ bike
wow, two targets in one post,
i salute you vocabulary winer hunter person.
I give this a year tops before it starts being used by the police against the owner's wishes. (eg when the rightful driver is driving faster than they like/fleeing them)
How is that any different? If you're fleeing the cops it should be used. Doesn't matter if you own the car or not. You are legally obligated to stop when a policeman is chasing you. There is no grey area here.
Or, as said above, Onstar immobilizes the vehicles of everybody who is behind on their payments! lolz
@Ghen: That's all well and good until there is a legitimate excuse (emergency, trying to get to the hospital), the cop uses it, and someone dies because they chose to take over someone's personal property.
That's not to say that this technology isn't useful...but there's definitely a very slippery slope here, from a personal liberty perspective.
@Ghen - Incorrect. While you DO have to stop, it is perfectly ok for you to choose a well publicized area to do so. Sometimes, this takes a little bit of time to find. All police organizations understand when someone is nervous about stopping because they aren't 100% certain that the lights in their mirror are actual police. And even then, there was a case here in San Diego of a cop stopping a woman, raping and killing her, so there's that to consider.
So.. yeah, gotta stop.. but no, I don't want the cops calling in On Star before I get to a public place to do so.
@Ghen
No gray area? Really? Because the government should definitely have control over all the products you bought, no wait let me rephrase that, all your personall property, to enforce their law? Apply that principle to every device every person owns, now tell me what sort of future that is. I take it you've never met a certain Mr. George Orwell or his friends.
Well, I think the owner needs to call OnStar to give them a password or something in order to do it in the first place. I don't think they will just let anyone call up to kill the car, with the potential of some one that doesn't like you calling OnStar and imitating a cop while you are on the highway.
Now OnStar just needs an auto-lock system for the doors so the guy can't run once the car stops.
You'll never see OnStar use this on one of their own customers without a court subpoena ordering them to do it. It's the same as with anything else like cell phone records, there would be no benefit for OnStar for slowing down a fleeing suspect.
ditto! our new technology is awesome,,,,however the government will always step in and take it to there advantage as well as local law enforcement!
@ hexydes
"That's all well and good until there is a legitimate excuse (emergency, trying to get to the hospital), the cop uses it, and someone dies because they chose to take over someone's personal property."
I'm sorry, but there is never an excuse for a civilian to drive like a maniac. If you have a medical emergency, don't get in your own vehicle, call an ambulance. It may take a few minutes for the emergency vehicle to get there, but there are trained life savers in that vehicle, whereas in your vehicle there are not. I do not understand why someone would put a dying person (your example) in their own vehicle and risk their life for the amount of time it takes to get to the hospital instead of wait for EMS to come and stabalize and safely transport them.
@Musicman
You obviously have no experience with emergency situations, they often don't happen at times when waiting 15+ minutes for EMS to arrive and another 15 minutes to the Hospital is an option.
I sincerely hope your never put to the test in a situation like this, or your self righteous attitude about "civilians" ability to deal with emergency situations. Bad news buddy, Police and EMS are merely normal people with colorful uniforms and lights/sirens on their car that attempt to move traffic out of the way. They don't have magic powers that suddenly close gaps between spacetime and somehow make someone who is going to bleed out in 15 minutes not die because you called them to a scene instead of driving someone to the hospital yourself.
You don't have to drive like a "maniac" to drive quickly. I guarantee you I can drive safer at 160mph on a public roadway then you probably can at the speed limit... and from the number of times I've seen over weight, near sighted, over confident police officers make fools of themselves at the road course events I've participated in, it's clear that in a life and death situation, I would trust myself as much as I would one of them. especially since EMS is often a private contracted service... whom are also civilians.. how about that?
Tampa, 160 mph?
I think that's an e-peen thing. A), if you really think you can drive at 160mph on public roadways better than average folks can drive the speed limit, you are an amateur driver who does not understand driving very well. A Civic at 70 is a lot more stable than an M3 at 160.
Also, while you're basically right otherwise, I hope if you have to make an emergency drive, that you call the police and let them know what you're doing, and keep it at 85 or less. Traveling much faster than everyone else will get someone hurt.
Gimboa,
Please don't take my statement as I am some crazy fart cannon honda driver roaming through rush hour traffic with DMX blaring trying to show the "mad honeys" how "dope" my fly ride is.
I wasn't using those numbers literally, and while I have driven the M3 at 160 mph (removed speed limiter) I would definitely not rate it one of the more stable cars at that speed, definitely not moreso then a civic at 70 (although I had a buick skylark once.......)
In fact, other then purpose built full frame sports cars (z06, Viper, Ferrari ect) there aren't many uni body (pretty much all other cars) I would say are "stable" (able to make traffic adjustments and brake within reasonable distances).
However, there are several public roads in which that speed is permitted. When I went to Germany in some sections of the Autobahn we had a pretty tuned up AMG benz doing well north of that for a few moments. In rural Nevada there are sections of highway where you could essentially go as fast as you could handle on the public road (they have events there too), but the deal is if you cause or are involved in a wreck, you face the consequences.
I apologize, I didn't mean for it to sound as literal as it did, I only meant that just because he wasn't confident in the abilities of his vehicle or his own operation of it, doesn't mean there aren't those of us who when called upon could drive in excess of the speed limit with as much or more regard for safety as a pathetically under trained LEO or private EMT contractor.
they have already used the remote phone feature to spy on drug dealers. Just about any of the features can be activated with a judge's warrant... it's not that hard to get.
Owned-star!
What's funny is he said this earlier than the other guy, but got down-ranked for it (by 15 minutes too).
Even funnier is that I was trying to reply to the very same comment.
Gotta love that comment system.
Well, you got a sympathy upvote from me.
Sorry; wasn't trying to steal your thunder. In fact, I hadn't even seen your comment until after I made mine.
So +1 to make up for it.
Aww thanks; gee, you guys are just the best!
From "lowest ranked" to neutral... I don't know what I'd do without you!
You must have done something to piss off god recently, this kind of chaos is clearly his work.
Rather cool but i find having a third party having ultimate control over your car a tinsy bit disturbing.
Which is why I'll never buy a car from Government Motors.
I'm sure the owner of the new vehicle thought the same thing until he saw it in action.
That's why we pay for insurance.
I am curious what OnStar's policy is on revealing information and giving services to the authorities without the consent of the owner, and if the OnStar service can be activated, even if the user is not a subscriber. This can be a huge infringement on personal liberties. I see the safety and security benefits, but there is a fine line with providing information to the government without the owner's permission.
From personal experience, I do know that OnStar takes the privacy issue very seriously and will not track vehicles (e.g. for husband checking on wife's location/vice-versa) unless the police are involved (i.e. a crime/accident). They do not want to be seen as a nefarious "big brother" trampling on privacy rights, but rather as a benevolent one on the side of the vehicle owner... (Think about it- how many people would pay if OnStar was seen as an intrusive "spy" on each vehicle?)
What kind of information? The only things they could tell are your approximate location and speed. What information are you worried about them giving to the government?
As long as the car is on public roads, I don't see why it's an infringement on personal liberties. Tracking a car through OnStar is no different than tracking a car by roadside CCTV cameras. And if you're in violation of law, disabling a car through OnStar is no different than being pulled over, or forcibly stopped (spike strips and the like).
@Mark you know.. he/she doesn't want everyone to know where they have been ;)
Until big brother hits the nation's kill switch. trust no one.
FAIL for most criminals- they'll have to learn which vehicles are GM w/ OnStar
Will probably convince many moms to re-up for their OnStar subscription...
should he have brought a Transmitter that messes up frequencies, OnStar would have failed, miserably.
Nevertheless Huzzah for technology!
You can get a standard GPS jamming device that plugs in into car's 12V socket, works very well for GPS tracking systems. Paired with small GSM/UMTS/CDMA jammer the tracking device will stop working for sure . You can get both at dealextreme.com - but as far as I know they are illegal in the USA. No problems in europe though(maybe except for UK).
Or he could of just used the butt of that shotgun to smack that big ass On-Star antenna right off the roof of that Tahoe.
I would imagine the driver felt like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SqwMMj2wvA
I do not believe the vehicle pictured is a 2009 Chevy Tahoe.
It is not. It is picture of a pre-2008 model year Chevy truck/SUV.
OnStar asked permission from the victim to initiate the vehicle slowdown feature. Permission was granted.
And your comment went down just moments later!
ACTION NEWS!
Thats a shame.
So OnStar could stop the car, but they couldn't lock the doors until the police turned up?
What for? They thief would have just smashed the window out and the owner would have had to deal with the repairs.
If I was to buy a GM vehicle and it came with Onstar, I would disable it as soon as possible. Ubiquitous tracking devices give me the willies. And yes, I don't own a cell phone. I carry one for work, but it is off when I am driving and it isn't registered to me.
Careful, you realize Big Brother can track the tinfoil in your hat, right?
I really don't get why so many people are scared about stuff like this, there's well over 300 million people in America, that's a lot of people to be tracking for no real reason.
Hehe. You only use a cell phone for work. I love when the big brother nuts come out. As if their lives are worth the governments time to track. 10:45 John Doe goes to Grocery... What would be a concern is if a hacker or terrorist got into Onstars system and shutdown everyones car. I think that would be more of a concern.
Yes, there is security through obscurity.
Basically what I am saying, is this tech is a Pandora's box. Once it's out, there are consequences. Hopefully I'll be dead when it reaches Minority Report level of tracking.
And here I thought I had issues with "big brother watching" man.. most of you do realized that they can track just about everyone with in 5" from space, right....and that the government and marketing firms knows everything about you, right....
I'm Canadian, they have no clue that we even exist, so I'm safe.
@SOOPERGOOMAN
Neither does most of the rest of the world. ;)
I see all cars soon having this embedded in them. that way the cops and owned-star can stop every car on the road and cease chases altogether. Back to Hoofin' it.
Personally, I have huge reservations against this kind of thing. What's to keep it from being used against you in a potentially dangerous situation? For that matter, would signing up for such a service also automatically hand over control of the vehicle over to any random law enforcement official that contacts OnStar, even when you're the one driving?
And in the event such a situation harms you in some manner, do you waive the right to sue OnStar for damages?
Forget the whole "government entity" killing your car. It's still a computer, shit fails. That's all I need is a car that might disable itself.
" For that matter, would signing up for such a service also automatically hand over control of the vehicle over to any random law enforcement official that contacts OnStar, even when you're the one driving?"
A law enforcement officer would first have to find out if the person they were pursuing even had Onstar. Even if he did, he would then need to know the name and account number or password of the person as well. I don't have Onstar myself, but I would imagine it would be like many other subscription services which only need to know account information and serial numbers for the device. I really doubt that Onstar knows the license plate and registration number of the driver to match it up with a specific Onstar device, if a cop calls it in to them.