General Motors and PursuitWatch.org report that there are more than 30,000 pursuits
nationwide each year and that up to 400 people die annually in high-speed pursuits. As a
result, General Motors has announced that a feature of its OnStar mobile communications
system allows it to remotely slow the vehicle being pursued to idle speed.
GM says that,
although some people might feel that taking over control of their vehicle is a violation of
privacy, OnStar will maintain its privacy policies and it isn’t supposed to let police use
the system on an OnStar owner’s vehicle without the owner’s permission.
