Remote repo man

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by GEORGE MADDUX

Miss your car payments? You could find your car simply no longer runs, thanks to a remote system that renders unpaid-for vehicles inoperative. The system uses paging technology that gives car dealers the option of keeping deadbeat drivers in the driveway at the push of a button.

"Even though we don't know where the vehicle is, we can still turn it off," says Jacques Toupin, who says he has installed five of the $425 devices for dealers throughout the province. "In the end it saves money for the dealers, who otherwise have to pay up to $600 to hire a bailiff to recover a car," he says.

The device will disable the ignition of a car or stop its engine while in motion, something that Toupin admits could theoretically be dangerous. "Especially if you're going downhill with a heavy tractor and 'Oops,' there go the brakes," says Toupin. "But we'll only be turning off engines in the case of theft."

Drivers of cars rigged with the device must sign a waiver to accept its presence, says Toupin. He says the gizmo falls into a legal grey zone but--based on precedent set in a California case--he believes the device is legal here.

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