Mandate no location tracking or car shutoff for owners who aren't 30 days past due.
Mandate that there be a 24/7 line for emergency car re-activation that is clearly posted in the car.
Mandate the provision for 1 non-emergency temporary reactivation to avoid stranding people.
The three of those seem like they would go a long way to to assuage people's concerns.
EDIT: changed 'two' to 'three' since I apparently can't count...
I strongly disagree, because there are options to: * Own a less expensive car * Take transit * Ride a bike * Find a closer job * Find a closer house * Ride share
Now, you can probably craft a specific story where none of those are an option. Let's say a single mother living in section-8 housing with limited job prospects who is already driving a really old car and who found one job 20 miles away in an area with no transit. That's pretty bad, and it represents failures of our system at multiple levels. First I would propose spending government time to address those core issues before burning time on this symptom. Second, all these rules will make the car more expensive; it's a slight tax on the responsible paid by those who might miss payments. Third, this case is rare and it's unclear its worth the cost and unexpected consequence of regulation.
No, that's completely wrong. "Lack of choice" is not the only or main argument for consumer protection. We don't regulate the arsenic content of toys because parents have no choice but to buy commercially made toys.
The argument is "consumers are being treated by some bad actors in a manner by that interferes with their safety, privacy and dignity". The solution is to look at what the good actors are doing, and mandate that behavior to protect consumers.
> First I would propose spending government time to address those core issues before burning time on this symptom.
Why? Those core issues are incredibly controversial. We shouldn't avoid regulating a new means of loan efforcement because we can't solve fundamental social issues.
> Second, all these rules will make the car more expensive; it's a slight tax on the responsible paid by those who might miss payments.
What are you talking about? This technology (as discussed in the article) only applies to people who's are being offered subprime car loans and are a high risk on not paying. Additionaly, the technology in question should REDUCE the loan costs of subprime auto loans.
> Third, this case is rare and it's unclear its worth the cost and unexpected consequence of regulation.
What are you talking about? The article doesn't give clear numbers for the US market for this technology, but it doesn't seem to be particularly small. "Corinne Kirkendall, vice president for compliance and public relations for PassTime, which has sold 1.5 million devices worldwide," "Roughly 25 percent of all new auto loans made last year were subprime, and the volume of subprime auto loans reached more than $145 billion in the first three months of this year."
In an emergency, declaring the emergency to the car could be problematic, especially if its not the usual driver.
EDIT: Downvote away, but let us remember that having/operating a car is not by any means a basic human right that needs to be protected by legislation. On principle, do you think that if you live across the street from a car rental lot, you should automatically have "emergency" access to any car on the lot at any time? We're talking about essentially renting access to a car that may happen to be parked on your own property, and if you haven't paid for access to the car (or for access to emergency use of the car), then you really don't have any more inherent entitlement to its operation than you do to operating a car parked next door.
If you disagree with what I mentioned, I'd love to know why.
Having to actually pay your monthly payment so that you can travel in comfort in a personal automobile is really, really far from oppressive.
But that'd require some initiative.
That's an idea that people have given up on in the US. The only consumer protection legislation I ever hear about is in the EU.
That's not a good thing.
How the two factors balance out is not obvious.
You haven't exactly purchased it until all of the payments have been made.
Once it's actually yours, I imagine you're free to remove the tracker.
True. But as for the inspections... In Canada my landlord only need give me 24 hours notice before they enter my apartment whether I agree to it or not. It's not even necessary that I receive and confirm their desire to enter. Simply a note on or under the door 24 hours prior is enough.
Even worse... all a landlord must do to enter my apartment without any notice given at any time of day is deem their entrance an emergency.
If I owned my apartment and all payments had been made, this could never happen.
My car has a 'sport mode' which seems to do a pretty good job of this ;)