Legislation to bar motor vehicle dealers or lenders from remotely disabling motor vehicles was released today by an Assembly panel. The bill was sponsored by Assembly Democrats Paul Moriarty and Angel Fuentes.
The bill (A-4033) makes it an unlawful for a motor vehicle dealer or a loan lender to install a payment assurance device on vehicle in connection with its sale or lease.
The bill defines a “payment assurance device” as a device installed on a motor vehicle with global positioning system capability or starter interrupt capability allowing for the remote enabling or disabling of the motor vehicle.
It’s estimated about 2 million vehicles are equipped with the devices, but safety concerns have arisen as borrowers have reportedly had their vehicles disabled while idling or even while driving on the highway.
“No one should have their car disabled because they missed a payment by a day or two,” said Moriarty (D-Gloucester/Camden). “These devices are akin to having a predatory debt collector riding in the car with the borrower, ready to strike at the slightest mistake. It’s incredibly unsafe and unnecessary. We need this bill to protect the safety and privacy of consumers.”
“As the subprime auto lending market has expanded greatly in recent years, these devices are increasingly installed on motor vehicles as a condition of securing a loan,” said Fuentes (D-Camden/Gloucester). “Use of the devices is generally unregulated and allows predatory lenders to track and store data without any safeguards for privacy, causing potential consumer and public safety issues and other serious consequences.”
The bill was released by the Assembly Consumer Affairs Committee chaired by Moriarty.
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This practice not only endangers the driver, it endangers everyone on the road.
Typical democrats pandering to their base the ones who dont pay back their loans. Gotta love the garbage about late on their loan by a day or two, no lender will cut the car being late a couple of days. The devices can also tell them if the car is moving or its parked so theres no danger. i think these devices are great and would have no problem with a lender wanting to put one on my car its good for everyone we get the loan quicker and they feel secured only people who dont pay their debts feel threatened by this.
They can make the law require that it can only be disabled at 12:00 am. And it can only be used after 3 month delinquency after numerous phone calls to the borrower . but what law protects lenders ,ensuring that their $30,000+/- car isn’t being driven around for free ( forever)?!
If you don’t pay for the car you dong deserve to drive it. So I’m all for this practice. I have some people you can install it into too