单选题
Car Thieves Could Be Stopped Remotely
Speeding off in a stolen car, the thief thinks he has got a great catch. But he is in a nasty surprise. The car is fitted with a remote immobilizer, and a radio signal from a control center miles away will ensure that once the thief switches the engine
1
, he will not be able to start it again.
For now, such devices
2
only available for fleets of trucks and specialist vehicles used on construction sites. But remote immobilization technology could soon start to trickle down to ordinary cars, and
3
be available to ordinary cars in the UK
4
two months.
The idea goes like this. A control box fitted to the car incorporates
5
miniature cellphone, a microprocessor and memory, and a GPS satellite positioning receiver.
6
the car is stolen, a coded cellphone signal will tell the unit to block the vehicle"s engine management system and prevent the engine
7
restarted.
There are even plans for immobilizers
8
shut down vehicles on the move, though there are fears over the safety implications of such a system.
In the UK, an array of technical fixes is already making
9
harder for car thieves. "The pattern of vehicles crime has changed," says Martyn Randall of Thatcham, a security research organization based in Berkshire that is funded in part
10
the motor insurance industry.
He says it would only take him a few minutes to
11
a novice how to steal a car, using a bare minimum of tools. But only if the car is more than 10 years old.
Modem cars are a far tougher proposition, as their engine management computer will not
12
them to start unless they receive a unique ID code beamed out by the ignition key. In the UK, technologies like this
13
achieve a 31 percent drop in vehicle-related crime since 1997.
But determined criminals are still managing to find other ways to steal cars. Often by getting hold of the owner"s keys in a burglary. In 2000, 12 percent of vehicles stolen in the UK were taken by using the owner"s keys, which doubles the previous year"s figure.
Remote-controlled immobilization system would
14
a major new obstacle in the criminal"s way by making such thefts pointless. A group that includes Thatcham, the police, insurance companies and security technology firms have developed standards for a system that could go on the market sooner than the
15
expects.