Thieves will have to think twice as GM and OnStar literally put a stop to quick getaways in stolen cars. Their Stolen Vehicle Slowdown service was officially activated on Thursday, October 9 in the U.S. and Canada. By facilitating the safe recovery of stolen vehicles, high-speed police chases, which often end up with car crashes resulting to injuries and death, can now be averted. It works by remotely disabling a car’s throttle system so that the vehicle can safely be slowed down even before a high-speed chase can begin.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration records an average of 300 deaths per year as a result of the 30,000 high-speed chases that take place within the same time frame.
In 1996, OnStar started offering its customers its GPS-based Stolen Vehicle Location Assistance which helps police in tracking down stolen vehicles by pinpointing their exact location. Stolen Vehicle Slowdown, which OnStar makes available in its Generation 8 hardware, is an enhancement to Stolen Vehicle Location Assistance.
"No other automaker provides its customers the peace of mind that OnStar Stolen Vehicle Slowdown does," said Chet Huber, OnStar president. "Our subscribers have told us they don’t want their vehicle to be the instrument of harm."
The public was made aware of this new service via a 25-city safety awareness information campaign because a crucial element of Stolen Vehicle Slowdown is the involvement and cooperation of local law enforcement agencies. As it is, the service is optional although GM foresees the new feature to be active in about 1.7 million of its vehicles by next year.
Once an OnStar subscriber reports that his vehicle has been stolen, law enforcement authorities are alerted and, using GPS, a fix on the car’s location is established. After police have the subject vehicle in sight, a request is made to the OnStar command center for them to send a data signal to the car. This will “de-power” it and take away accelerator control from the felon so that the car slows down gradually.
"Prior to Stolen Vehicle Slowdown, there were only three ways to stop a police chase; the officer elects to terminate the chase, the vehicle being pursued decides to stop or in the worse case scenario there is a crash," said David Hiller, national vice president, Fraternal Order of Police. "With OnStar Stolen Vehicle Slowdown we now have an additional and obviously far safer method. We congratulate GM and OnStar for working with law enforcement as they developed this product."
The Stolen Vehicle Slowdown feature was presented to local police authorities last year (see attached video).
General Motors just added a new service to its OnStar technology. The new service will allow OnStar to assist the police in recovering your stolen vehicle, and hopefully reduce fatalities and injuries that result from high speed police chases. This new technology is known as “Stolen Vehicle Slowdown,” and its name pretty much tells what it was created to do. Basically, this is the latest enhancement to OnStar’s stolen vehicle service, and it allows OnStar advisors to work with the police, by sending a signal to the subscriber’s stolen vehicle that reduces engine power, slowing the vehicle down gradually.
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