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(51), he will not be able to start it again. For now, such devices(52)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(53) be available to ordinary cars in the UK(54)two months. The idea goes like this. A control box fitted to the car incorporates(55) miniature cellphone, a microprocessor and memory, and a GPS satellite positioning receiver.(56)the car is stolen, a coded cellphone signal will tell the unit to block the vehicle's engine management system and prevent the engine(57)restarted. There are even plans for immobilizers(58)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(59)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(60)the motor insurance industry. He says it would only take him a few minutes to(61)a novice how to steal a car, using a bare minimum of tools. But only if the car is more than 10 years old. Modern cars are a far tougher proposition, as their engine management computer will not(62) them to start unless they receive a unique ID code beamed out by the ignition key. In the UK, technologies like this(63) achieve a 31 per cent drop in vehicle-related crime since 1997. But determined criminals are still managing to find other ways to steal cars. Often by getting hold of the owner's keys in a burglary. In 2000, 12 per cent of vehicles stolen in the UK were taken by using the owner's keys, which doubles the previous year's figure. Remote-controlled immobilization system would(64)a major new obstacle in the criminal's way by making such thefts pointless. A group that includes Thatcham, the police, insurance companies and security technology firms have developed standards for a system that could go on the market sooner than the(65)expects.