August 13, 2009 by admin
“I Felt Totally Helpless”
John Stillman and his wife Nancy stopped at a local mall in Tucson for about 30 minutes. When they came out, they couldn’t find their truck. Nancy said she thought someone stole it, but John — who was a police officer for 30 years and a commander of a SWAT team — couldn’t believe it. “I felt totally helpless, and that’s not a feeling I’m used to.”
John called the police and OnStar. “OnStar worked with the local authorities to find my Silverado — they helped locate it using GPS. The police recovered my truck within three hours of it being stolen and caught the thief. They discovered it was the same guy who had stolen another truck one week earlier and had been caught because that truck also had OnStar. He had bonded out of jail three days earlier and had gone directly to Tucson and stole my vehicle.”
John says he’s had OnStar on all his vehicles since 1997 as an emergency backup and it’s been worth it. “I can’t thank OnStar enough for their quick action and help. If it wasn’t for them, I know I would never have seen my truck again.””
When he was talking to the OnStar Advisor about his truck, John asked her if they could just shut the truck off when they located it. The Advisor told him about the latest enhancements to Stolen Vehicle Assistance1 — OnStar Stolen Vehicle Slowdown®2, which allows OnStar to remotely slow down a stolen vehicle when authorities on the scene determine conditions are safe — and Remote Ignition Block3, a brand-new weapon in the OnStar arsenal.
OnStar’s newest weapon: Remote Ignition Block
The number of stolen vehicles in the U.S. is staggering. According to the FBI Uniform Crime Report, nearly 1.1 million vehicles were stolen in 2007. That’s one vehicle stolen every 29 seconds. And stolen vehicle incidents can turn into dangerous high-speed pursuits — more than 400 people die every year as a result of high-speed police chases4.
Now, OnStar is doing even more to help with the safe and quick recovery of stolen vehicles with the introduction of Remote Ignition Block, the latest enhancement to the most comprehensive suite of stolen vehicle assistance services available. About 2.7 million select 2009 and newer GM vehicles will be available with Remote Ignition Block.
Here’s how it works:
- • An OnStar subscriber reports the stolen vehicle to authorities and requests Stolen Vehicle Assistance service from OnStar.
- • The OnStar Advisor pinpoints the vehicle’s exact GPS location and provides it to authorities.
- • The Advisor sends a Remote Ignition Block signal to the stolen vehicle, which prevents it from being restarted.
- • On select models, authorities can request Stolen Vehicle Slowdown if they have a clear line of sight of the stolen vehicle and confirm conditions are safe to slow the vehicle down.
With capabilities such as Stolen Vehicle Slowdown and now Remote Ignition Block, OnStar subscribers have the added peace of mind knowing their vehicle can be prevented from being used as an instrument of harm. In fact, 97% of OnStar subscribers surveyed said they would like Ignition Block capability on their vehicles.
When John heard about Stolen Vehicle Slowdown and Remote Ignition Block, he was duly impressed. “Speaking as someone with a career in law enforcement, I don’t think there should be a vehicle out there without OnStar — nothing else compares to it.”
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1 Ability to locate stolen vehicles varies with conditions.
2 Stolen Vehicle Slowdown is available on select 2009 GM vehicles. Visit onstar.com for details.
3 Remote Ignition Block is available on select 2009 and newer GM vehicles. Visit onstar.com for details. Success varies with conditions.
4 Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) Uniform Crime Reports 2007.
