Wall Street Can Now Disable Your Car When You're Driving on the Freeway
People with poor credit are being sold cars with GPS-based kill switches.Imagine this scenario: You’re on an important trip miles from home and stopped in traffic, but before you can continue on your way, your car shuts down. You’ve got enough gas in the tank and no mechanical problems. But you’re stranded far from home because you’re a few days late on your car payment and the lender won’t let you drive until the debt is paid.
If this sounds like part of a dystopian future in which repo men are now cyborgs, it’s not. It’s happening today and becoming a big part of the new automotive landscape. Car dealers and automotive lenders are targeting those with poor credit by installing GPS-based kill switches, or starter-interrupt devices, on the cars that they sell.
The New York Times recently reported that about 2 million cars are now outfitted with such kill switches in the U.S., which is about one-quarter of subprime car loans, and creditors are not shy when it comes to remotely disabling cars whose owners are behind on their payments:
"Some borrowers say their cars were disabled when they were only a few days behind on their payments, leaving them stranded in dangerous neighborhoods. Others said their cars were shut down while idling at stoplights. Some described how they could not take their children to school or to doctor’s appointments. One woman in Nevada said her car was shut down while she was driving on the freeway.
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and all damages resulting therefrom.
There is something called a lien, and established legal process to exercise said lien...
...Instead road safety and human life is worth literally nothing to lenders who can't even wait to repo until the car is parked. How many drivers can reasonably recover from their car suddenly getting "kill switched" remotely while in moving traffic? It's not like subprime borrowers have access to the kinds of simulator-based contingency training that pilots do. A traditional repo can be responded to and contested. A repo of a vehicle in motion might not leave anyone alive to avail themselves of due process.
The equitable thing to do would be to hold lenders responsible for liablility for accidents originating from the activation of a kill switch on a vehicle that was in active operation. Of course since the crooks control Congress now, they'll probably pass a subsidy for the kill switches instead. 
This kind of shit makes me glad I had the financial ability to buy my (used, then-40k miles) car on a credit card instead of having to deal with this crap. Yeah, CC interest was higher, but it was unsecured, I don't have to worry about liens and crap, and I'd be guaranteed that the bank would have to sue me before sending the repo guy; the repo could only occur after court judgement. (That was four years ago and the car depreciated more so it's probably close to untouchable in bankruptcy court, now, too, not to mention the matter that I've paid the card down since.) The whole notion that there are drivers out on the road with me who could have their cars shut off because they're 2 days overdue on a payment is frightening.
Even if the GPS would only kill switch it while the car was stopped (say, idling at that red light), what about the drivers behind when the light turns green? Still creates a wholly unnecessary obstruction (and oooh it can't get out of the way of that upcoming siren!) because lenders are too lazy/impatient/greedy to do repo the correct way.
