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Comment by ggreer | Hacker News Reader

The same Kias & Hyundais were sold in South Korea, but their auto theft rate is 60x lower than the US.[1] Car theft rates are mostly determined by how effectively car thieves are caught & punished, not by how secure the car is.

1. 4.7 per 100k people per year vs 288.5: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_theft#Motor_vehi...

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Or because america doesn't regulate immobilisers like most other countries and has a race to the bottom mba mindset to save a few pennies vs the public good.

That's not correct. Immobilizers are not common in Japan or South Korea, both of which have extremely low auto theft rates. Canada has mandated immobilizers since 2007 and its auto theft rate is 248.5 per 100k per year, which is only slightly lower than the US, but still 17 times higher than Japan and 50 times higher than South Korea. Immobilizers have also been required in Australia since 2001, but its auto theft rate is the same as Canada.

If you measure auto theft rate per vehicle (not per person), then the US has the same rate as Canada. There are 16% more auto thefts per capita in the US, but the US also has 17% more cars per capita than Canada.

If lack of immobilizers was the main factor, Canada would have significantly lower auto theft rates than the US, and countries that mandated immobilizers would not have theft rates 15x higher than countries where they were uncommon. Neither of these are true, so immobilizers are most likely not the main factor in auto theft rates.

Auto theft rates are mostly determined by car ownership rates and the number of auto thieves on the street. The number of auto thieves on the street is determined by how quickly they are caught, and how long they are locked up for. Auto theft recidivism rates are higher than any other crime, including drug offenses. Around 80% are re-arrested within 3 years of being released. Considering the clearance rate for auto theft is around 10%, that means the average auto thief is stealing a lot of cars before being caught again, and the actual recidivism rate is higher than 80%.

Usa has 37% higher theft rate than Australia.

And I'm sure Hyundai and kia stats would be much higher due to lack of immobiliser and visibility of how easy they are to steal on social media.

That's not true. In 2025, Australia's auto theft rate was 241.4 per 100k people.[1] In the US last year, the rate was less than 200 per 100k people.[2]

1. 66,625 vehicle thefts divided by a population of 27,600,000. https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/crime-and-justice/r...

2. 659,880 vehicle thefts divided by a population of 341,784,857 is 193 per 100k. https://www.nicb.org/news/news-releases/us-vehicle-thefts-ex...

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