Gone in 60 seconds.

In the past week I have read two articles featuring car theft. I thought winter was the slow season for theft, but maybe car boosting is not a seasonal business.

Mike Harden wrote in the Dispatch an article about a stolen car sitting in an impound lot for three years. Read about it here.

Then in Forbes Ian Ayres and Barry Nalebuff defend LoJack in their article "Stop Thief!" by saying this about users of The Club:

People who would never think of putting a sign in their car window saying, "My neighbor leaves her keys in the ignition" feel fine putting on a steering-wheel bar that has basically the same effect.

I never thought about theft prevention from this angle, but I have heard it before. When I was in the security industry, some installers and professionals stated goal for security is to make one building just hard enough to gain entrance that criminals try the next door. Perhaps this is why security is most frequently purchased only after a burglary in response to a crime instead of to prevent a crime.

Their theory about a Lo-er Jack, inexpensive vehicle locator is great and will catch joy riders, but professional boosters will know to just stash the car in a metal crate and defeat any transmission of the vehicle location. Any such device must report the vehicle location constantly.

I am sure these devices will become more common. New cellular and wi-fi technologies will make this sort of device very inexpensive.