These days stolen vehicles are mostly fodder for action movies, video games and comic books, but that wasn't always the case — New York used to have one of the highest rates of auto theft in the nation. Cars would disappear from parking lots, or have their windows smashed on the street, and be stripped of their electronics. Automobiles were criminals' currency of choice — easy to steal and easy to unload. Insurance fraud skyrocketed, as did rates.
People were scared, and they were paying more and more to keep their vehicles insured.
To tamp down on the theft and insurance fraud that were proliferating, in 1977 the New York State Legislature passed the Automobile Insurance Reform Act, requiring mandatory pre-insurance visual inspections of used vehicles.
The program proved its worth immediately.
The year after it was enacted, car thefts declined by 7 percent in the state, while in neighboring New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut, they shot up by 36 percent, 16 percent, and 18 percent respectively, as fraud rings crossed state lines to those safe havens.
And over time, New York's theft rates continued to fall. Today, we're 55 percent below the national average.
Now, though, people want to roll back these important consumer protections because they say they're too much of a hassle — sponsoring legislation in the State Legislature to make inspections of used vehicles optional, rather than mandatory.
I don't want to return to the New York of the 1970s. Our elected officials in Albany should make sure we don't.
Peter Kontos is former head of the New York State Police Auto Theft and Frauds Unit – Statewide.