This blog has previously covered in 2023 and 2024 the unique threat of Kia and Hyundai vehicles to traffic safety — including the death of a senior citizen in a crash in Alameda directly attributable to the theft of one of those specific vehicles.

If a car can be stolen with a screwdriver, a USB cable, and some training from TikTok, then a whole host of problems — including extremely dangerous and reckless driving — results.

At this blog's suggestion, the Alameda City Attorney explored potential lawsuits to join, including the People of the State of California v. Hyundai Motor America and Kia America, Inc, filed by the City of San Diego. The table of contents for that complaint provided a readable summary of the problem:

While I'm not sure if the City of Alameda decided to take any local action on the matter, that and other lawsuits have proceeded. This week, Attorney General Rob Bonta announced a multi-state settlement with Kia and Hyundai:

• The auto manufacturers will provide free hardware fixes to owners of existing vehicles, which will go beyond the software fix they offered the other year.
• The auto manufacturers will provide some compensation to owners whose vehicles were stolen, and will cover some of the public sector's costs of bringing this lawsuit.

It still looks like a small dollar amount for such a massive problem. And no dollar amount can be assigned to the public and private harm that has been caused by these easily stolen cars becoming the "gateway" to further misbehavior or crime. How much of public perceptions of disorder in the last decade could have been enabled merely by two auto manufacturers too cheap and too chicken to fix their own design failure?

The next time I bike past Rob Bonta as he's taking out his trash bins, I'll shout out a thank you for this successful settlement (not to mention the other even more critical lawsuits in which the California Attorney General's office is currently engaged).