Star Power

We all know that technology can make our cars safer.
We all know that it can make them faster and it can make them cooler.
But now it turns out that technology can help police nail car thieves and avoid high-speed chases – disabling vehicles by remote control.
You might say it was OnStar to the rescue.
In the words of Adrian Monk, here's what happened.
According to an AP story, a California man had his 2009 Tahoe stolen at gunpoint early Sunday morning. He told the cops the vehicle had On Star and that helped them track the Tahoe but as they started after it, the driver sped away. Dispatchers, who were on the phone with OnStar operators, told the officers not to worry about chasing the vehicle since OnStar was about to disable the gas pedal. Sure enough the Tahoe rolled to a halt, the bad guy jumped out and the cops nabbed him.
Not all GM vehicles with OnStar have the "stolen vehicle slowdown feature," but OnStar and GM are working to fix that within the next few years. This is just another cool feature that will likely become more widely used in the future.
Score one for the good guys.