The New York Times and liberal mayors accuse Hyundai and Kia of making things too easy for car thieves.
The New York Times and liberal mayors accuse Hyundai and Kia of making things too easy for car thieves.
T he Left’s list of “root causes” of crime — blaming anyone but the criminal — has just gotten longer: Certain automobile manufacturers have allegedly made their cars too easy to steal. Over the course of this year, the cities of Baltimore, Chicago, Cleveland, Columbus, New York, Seattle, and St. Louis have each sued Hyundai Motor America Inc., which manufactures both Hyundai and Kia automobiles, on the grounds that its cars are particularly simple for people other than their owners to start and drive off with.
In a piece published Friday, New York Times opinion columnist Farhad Manjoo explains the technological negligence that allows Hyundai and Kia cars to be such ready targets for car thieves:
For years now, most automakers have equipped most of the cars they sell in the United States with electronic immobilizers, devices that prevent cars from starting until they detect a radio ID code associated with the car’s rightful key. But Hyundai and Kia, which come under the same South Korean conglomerate, did not install the basic device in somewhere around nine million cars sold between 2011 and 2022. A couple of years ago, videos showing how to hotwire the vulnerable cars began to pop up online. Without going into details, the hack involves jamming a small object into the car’s starter and turning it as if it were a key. One perfectly shaped tool for the job is readily available: a USB plug.
The lack of safeguards built into these cars’ ignitions seems to have had consequences: The number of automobile thefts during the first half of this year, Manjoo notes, was 33.5 percent higher than during the first half of 2022. So far this year, more than half of all cars stolen in Chicago have been either Kia or Hyundai models, and in Cleveland, the two makes accounted for 57 percent of pilfered vehicles. Those who lift the Hyundais and Kias, Manjoo writes, often use them in the course of committing other crimes, such as vehicular assault and armed robbery. Adrian Diaz, Seattle’s police chief, told Manjoo that the city’s law-enforcement officers have been “recovering guns” from stolen Kias.
Manjoo considers a recent focus on TikTok as a platform on which would-be car thieves can view hotwiring tutorials to be a case of misplaced blame. A number of New York Democrats have criticized the social-media app for its lack of content moderation, effectively accusing TikTok of being an accessory to vehicle theft. But Manjoo says “it’s Kia and Hyundai, not TikTok, that sold theft-prone cars.”
He’s got a point — but there’s something important being left out of the equation here: The people who steal cars (even those without proper safeguards) willingly make the decision to steal them. The intense scrutiny of Hyundai and Kia is a flailing attempt by those on the left to avoid blaming the criminals themselves.
One lawsuit is especially rich, given the mayor who filed it. Brandon Johnson, the arch-progressive mayor of Chicago, said “the failure of Kia and Hyundai to install basic auto-theft prevention technology in these models is sheer negligence, and as a result, a citywide and nationwide crime spree around automobile theft has been unfolding right before our eyes.”
Maybe we should take his words seriously. After all, Johnson does know a lot about negligence. In April of this year, several hundred teenagers cut loose on the streets of Chicago, smashing windows, vandalizing cars, and committing acts of assault and robbery. At a press conference following the violent outburst, Johnson excused the behavior, saying the rioters were young, and young people sometimes “make silly decisions.” That’s true, but most teenage mistakes don’t involve two people being shot. The mayor argued that “demonizing children is wrong,” and “we have to keep them safe as well.” At a certain point, though, the rioters’ safety is in their own hands.
Similar violent episodes occurred over the summer in the Windy City, and Johnson’s excuses have at this point become a pattern. In August, the mayor trained his fire on a reporter who characterized these eruptions as the behavior of a hysterical mob, saying such a description was “not appropriate. We’re not talking about mob actions. . . . It’s important that we speak of these dynamics in an appropriate way.” Johnson’s preferred description is “large gatherings.”
The progressive desire to absolve criminals of responsibility for their actions is not limited to those holding elected office. In her 2003 book Are Prisons Obsolete? (a title to which we can reply with an emphatic “no”), Angela Davis — ’60s radical, darling of today’s campus socialist set, and formerly among the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives — addresses the “most persistent question” that critics of prison abolition ask: “What will happen to the murderers and rapists?” Davis does not answer this question, instead arguing that, in a post-penal society, social services will address the causes of criminal behavior, namely, inadequate education and health care.
One cause, though, always seems to be left out: the decision to break the law.