There was a feeling that car thefts were a crisis in the 1970s so almost cars have had immobilizer and a locking steering column since the 1980s in the US. I guess it wasn’t required but i do know insurance companies would give you a small discount for having an immobilizer.

I hotwired an old 1970s “boat of car” in 1992 (with permission) but i had no idea how you’d steal a car newer than that. Car thefts fell out of fashion and the new fear became “carjackings” where somebody steals you car at gunpoint when you’re driving it.

By the 2010s people had forgotten that car theft was a problem and I started hearing stories about cars being stolen with insecure keyless entry systems, now sometimes they smash a headlight and hack into the CAN bus. It’s a fairly predictable problem in law enforcement and crime management that people have a finite list of priorities to attend to and if they decide to do something about car thefts or excessive false alarms or racism or whatever we get some improvements but once there is improvement people get worried about something else then the old problems come back.