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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 off , he will not be able to start it again. For now, such devices 2 are 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 should be available to ordinary cars in the UK 4 in two months. The idea goes like this. A control box fitted to the carincorporates 5 a miniature cellphone, a microprocessor and memory, and a GPS satellite positioning receiver. 6 If the car is stolen, a coded cellphone signal will tell the unit to block the vehicles engine management system and prevent the engine 7 being restarted. There are even plans for immobilizers 8 that 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 life 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 by the motor insurance industry. | 
