Sunday, June 26, 2011

To Prevent Car Thefts, The Home Minister wants a GPS tracker in every car.

RR-Patil-wants-new-

rules-that-ensure-that-all

four-wheelers-have-a-GPS-tracker.

I hope this move will be welcomed by all vechical owners :)

As thefts go up, RR wants a GPS tracker in every car

Over 5,000 vehicles are stolen in Mumbai every year and less than 600 recovered. The Home Minister has now told the transport department not to issue fresh registrations to vehicles without the device

With car thefts on the rise and recovery statistics falling alarmingly, the government is on the verge of making GPS trackers mandatory in all four-wheelers registered in the state.

Home Minister RR Patil, after reviewing motor-vehicle theft numbers (on an average 2,000 are stolen in Mumbai each year and only 600 found), has asked the Transport Authority to not issue registration papers for all new cars not fitted with a global positioning system. He has asked for rules to be framed in this regard, and for them to be implemented at the earliest.

A GPS tracker, not to be confused with a GPS navigator installed for the drivers’ convenience, costs approximately Rs 4,000. It maps the latitude and longitude of the vehicle at all times, and relays that information to owners on their mobile phones via sms.

Car theft statistics reveal that some luxury four-wheelers, such as the Scorpio and the Pajero, are the favourites of thieves, who sell them with forged documents in some states in northIndia.

“We’ve been demanding that the five BMC octroi posts in Mumbai be equipped with CCTV cameras so that any vehicle being moved out could be captured on CCTV along with its driver. But the response from BMC has been lukewarm. Hence we want car owners to take initiative and install GPS,” said an officer from the Traffic police, who asked not to be named.

working-of-a-car-GPS-tracker

Police sources said car thieves had been improvising their modus operandi and skills, making it difficult to trace stolen vehicles. “There are multiple gangs involved nowadays in the process. So even if we catch one, the remaining leads cannot be traced,” he added.

Mumbai Police had written to prominent car manufacturers last year, asking them to take certain precautions regarding the lock and keys of cars. But the car manufacturers did not revert back to them.

Cops said another problem was lack of support from insurance companies, which paid the owners in cases of theft and did not bother to pursue tracing the stolen car.

Two months ago, approximate 250 cars from across Maharashtra were recovered in Rajasthan, but only a handful were claimed by insurance firms.

Apart from cars, 3,000 two-wheelers are stolen in the city each year, and only 1,000 are found.Transport Commissioner Dilip Jadhav, in a high-level meeting with the Chief Minister all evening, was unavailable for comment.

How GPS tracker works

• The device captures the GPS location information apart from other vehicle information at regular intervals to a central server.

• If the vehicle is stolen, you and cops can locate your car from any computer with an Internet connection.

• You can even immobilise your car sitting on a computer from anywhere in the World.

• The other vehicle information of a GPS device include fuel amount, engine temperature, altitude, door open/close, tire pressure, cut off fuel, battery status, and a lot more