Remote Immobilisers For Cars using mobile phone technology?

[John Luxton]

In the past two weeks there have been three "wrong way" incidents on Irish, English and Welsh roads.

On the M9 in Ireland a week or so ago three sisters and one sister's son was critically injured in a head on collision on the M9 mtorway after a Garda persuit resulted in them making off wrong way down the motorway all the criminals perished.

There was the Middlesbrough incident which has cost the lives of 2 PCs and the villains.

Yesterday on Anglesey a taxi was stolen and the thief made off wrong way down the A55 - fortunately stopped before anyone was killed.

This made me wonder given that most new cars are full of computer tech- would it not be possible to install immobilisers which would work via the mobile phone net work.

Car gets stolen, owner can then enter a pin number via a mobile device or PC which would then cause the engine to stop.

Similarly there would be a code which the police would enter to immobilise a car - perhaps safer than the stinger devices.

If something such as this could be developed it could seriously reduce car crime and make the roads safer.

Just an idea - how practical would its implication be?

 

[styles]

These do already exist, typically used for company fleet vehicles and very pricey briefs though.

Some example providers:

S5+ Trackers with Immobilisation - Tracker Team

trackerteam.co.uk

Remote Immobiliser for Vehicles | Secure Over-the-Air Engine Immobilisation"

Remotely immobilise your vehicle with advanced over-the-air remote immobiliser technology. Protect against theft deny unauthorised vehicle use with seamless, real-time control from anywhere. Easy integration with existing security systems for enhanced vehicle safety. Discover how our remote immobili

www.specialist-trackers.uk

Remote Vehicle Immobilizer System - Digital Matter

Remote Vehicle Immobilizer Systems enable users to stop stolen vehicles, enhance recovery rates, and alert to unauthorized vehicle usage.

www.digitalmatter.com

Some of these only immobilise the starter motor so don't offer much in terms of a vehicle that is already started, but some do offer that.

There is of course a risk involved in that any technology you can use to remotely disable a vehicle is also open to attack by nefarious actors. To give a parallel example, Huawei was given a number of contracts for UK 5G infrastructure. GCHQ spent some ungodly amount of money basically screening their hardware and software and found large numbers of vulnerabilities and backdoors. They have since been effectively banned from the supply chain, but it shows how risky it can be rolling out technology which can be remotely controlled by those with bad intentions who either find an exploit, or in some cases even bake it into their product intentionally.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Turning a vehicle off when it was doing 100mph in the fast lane of a motorway is not unlikely to cause a crash.

 

[birchesgreen]

Turning a vehicle off when it was doing 100mph in the fast lane of a motorway is not unlikely to cause a crash.

It would be a judgement call for sure, bad crash now or (potential) super crash later. A call i'm glad i'll never have to make.

 

[Tetchytyke]

Turning a vehicle off when it was doing 100mph in the fast lane of a motorway is not unlikely to cause a crash.

Not really. It should just coast to a stop- clearly you'd only immobilise the engine and not the power-assisted steering and brakes. No different to how a stinger is designed to cause a gradual deflation rather than blowing the tyres out.

 

[TheTallOne]

Not really. It should just coast to a stop- clearly you'd only immobilise the engine and not the power-assisted steering and brakes. No different to how a stinger is designed to cause a gradual deflation rather than blowing the tyres out.

Maybe, but the car doing 200mph may hit the other car (the car that was doing 100mph and didn't get to the hard shoulder in time).

Too many idiots, it's not just one at a time!

 

[John Luxton]

Not really. It should just coast to a stop- clearly you'd only immobilise the engine and not the power-assisted steering and brakes. No different to how a stinger is designed to cause a gradual deflation rather than blowing the tyres out.

Yes that is what I had in mind.

I have quite often watched Traffic Cops and the stinger is not that effective.

Some keep going until the wheel rims are wearing out and by then the car is dangerously out of control anyway.

If police could stop a car remotely it would obviate the need in most cases for car chases and overall would make the roads safer.

 

[Lucan]

Turning a vehicle off when it was doing 100mph in the fast lane of a motorway is not unlikely to cause a crash.

Not really. It should just coast to a stop- .... No different to how a stinger is designed to cause a gradual deflation

A stinger can be deployed where it is relatively safe to do so and other traffic kept away. However, see my further comment below. But when the owner or police press a remote kill button, will they know where the car is and what is around it? Only in a close chase situation perhaps.

I have quite often watched Traffic Cops and the stinger is not that effective. Some keep going until the wheel rims are wearing out

A while ago I was binge watching YouTube videos of cops stopping car fugitives in the USA. It's brutal on both sides, often complicated by gunfire. The fugitives usually carry on after tyre deflation, the tyre disintegrating until they are on their rims, sometimes still doing over 100mph which I would not have thought was even possible. They often stop only after the bare wheel rim wears down to the suspension or comes off, and the car consequently catches fire, or a police car nudges them sideways into a spin or rollover. Very often people die.

There is also something called a grappler which is a net of straps on extending booms that a police car close behind shoves under the rear of the fugitive car. The grappler is caught by the wheels and wound up around the rear axle, sometimes just pulling the fugitive to a halt, or more dramatically ripping their rear axle off entirely.

 

[87 027]

How would the police make sure they've identified the correct vehicle to immobilise e.g. if it's got cloned or obscured number plates?

 

[styles]

How would the police make sure they've identified the correct vehicle to immobilise e.g. if it's got cloned or obscured number plates?

Vehicles with such technology would also be tracked through satellite navigation systems, so that's probably quite an easy problem to solve in the grand scheme of things.

But it would require either the vehicle owner to deactivate it while moving (not something we'd really want to empower owing to the dangers mentioned above) or for a backdoor access to be added for the police, which brings in other security concerns.

 

[John Luxton]

How would the police make sure they've identified the correct vehicle to immobilise e.g. if it's got cloned or obscured number plates?

VIN Number - that isn't as easily cloned.

 

[87 027]

VIN Number - that isn't as easily cloned.

I was thinking more about identifying the right vehicle in mid pursuit in the dark! Maybe cars could broadcast this information but then presumably people could carry signal jammers... And I do think there are cyber security concerns over the ability to remotely halt a vehicle while it's moving as the automotive industry doesn't have a stellar track record on security

 

[dosxuk]

Rather than just immobilising the engine which brings with it all sorts of risks with the sudden loss of power, these days it shouldn't be difficult to force the vehicle to slow down and stop - e.g. set the hazard lights going, then reduce the speed limiter down to 10 mph over a short period, and shutdown the engine (and prevent restarting) once the speed drops to zero.

 

[PeterC]

Who gets to decide which cars are immobilised? Police? Government?

Every car in Canada switched off at Trump's whim?

 

[styles]

Who gets to decide which cars are immobilised? Police? Government?

Every car in Canada switched off at Trump's whim?

Or goodness forbid, Elon Musk.