The future of bait cars in an era of self-driving cars.
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Bait cars are said to be the equivalent of a four-wheeled mousetrap.
In case you’ve never heard the expression “bait cars” before, the notion is that an ordinary car is used as bait to lure prospective car thieves into trying to steal the seemingly innocuous vehicle. The way that this usually works is that the police opt to park an everyday looking car in a locale that is known for having a lot of car thefts, and then nab any car thieves that get into the car and attempt to drive away with the baited automobile.
Sometimes the cops are parked nearby and eyeballing the bait car in a classic stakeout protocol, though if they are too close it could inadvertently deter the car thieves if they perchance spy the police vehicle and are either scared off or become suspicious that the “sitting duck” car is indeed a kind of mousetrap. To avoid the chance of tipping their hand to the potential lawbreakers, modern-day uses of bait cars involve rigging the vehicle with hidden cameras and various remote-control devices. This allows law enforcement to be relatively far away and yet still know when the bait has been taken. An alerting signal is typically emanated from the bait car once the car doors have been opened and someone has gotten inside.
Are you wondering what happens once the thieves have taken the bait?
Well, there are plenty of online videos posted on numerous social media platforms that showcase the car thieves as they steal a bait car. If it weren’t for the seriousness of the crime being committed, these videos are ostensibly laughable when you watch the recorded results of the crooks going from initial elation that they are getting away with stealing a car and then their shock and awe upon realizing they are being busted for the crime.
Many of the videos begin with the prospective crooks opting to look around inside the vehicle and searching for any “goodies” that might be laying around. To make bait cars especially alluring, the police will sometimes place a laptop computer in the backseat or put a bunch of cash in the dashboard cubby or possibly place a cellphone on the driver’s seat as though it might have fallen out of the owner’s pocket when they were driving the car.
Besides providing an added allure, these honey trap contraptions seem to embolden the thieves as to their perceived good luck and avid fortune toward possibly stealing the car. The bandits could potentially just take the goodies and leave the car, but it seems as though they begin to believe this is their perfect opportunity to steal the car since they already have gotten some pirated treasure from the intrusion.
Some assert that this illustrates that greed works and can prod added untoward action by those that are bent on being crooks. Others liken it to putting a small worm on a baited hook and getting a fish to take a taste, which then perhaps the hook has an ever larger and more alluring appearance, and the fish opts to take a larger gulp upon initial success.
In any case, the car thieves that are determined to take the car will start the engine and proceed to drive away from the parking spot. As they do so, the thieves tend to discuss what to do next. Sometimes there is a heated debate over where to take the vehicle and what to do with it. In other cases, the car thieves appear to be quite practiced on these matters and already have figured out where to go and have prearranged with other accomplices regarding the disposition of the stolen vehicle.
While they are having these deliberative chats, unbeknownst to them the police have been alerted and are closing in on the moving vehicle.
You might be worried that this is going to spark a car chase and could harm other innocents if the car thieves try to escape via a wild and death-defying driving escapade. For modern bait cars, law enforcement places a remote switch in the engine of the vehicle and can at the press of a button cause the engine to stop running. The car will briefly coast forward and then come to a halt. At that juncture, the police cars that were triangulating on the position of the bait car will surround the vehicle, turn on sirens, and announce to the occupants that the gig is up.
Via the internal cameras that were hidden inside the bait car, a handy video recording of what the car thieves did is presumably ironclad evidence of the theft.
There are some culprits that when the car engine freezes up begin to realize that they are perhaps inside a bait car. They might try to make a run for it, but another remote-control feature is that the door locks can be controlled remotely by the police. This makes any effort to try and dart out of the vehicle rather difficult if not nearly impossible to do since the doors and windows are kept locked at the time of the capture.
Believe it or not, in some areas the use of bait cars is so prevalent that the crooks will comment during the theft that they hope the vehicle is not a bait car (word has spread that bait cars are being used). The scofflaws will argue during the driving of the vehicle about whether or not the car is a legitimately ordinary car or one that has been surreptitiously set up by the cops. Perhaps one of the most frequent comments upon seeing the police car flashing lights is that one of the thieves will turn to the other one and insist they “told them so” about forewarning they were taking a bait car.
This last point about the awareness of bait cars by potential car thieves makes the situation one of a cat and mouse affair. If the bait car looks like it is a setup, the car thieves will presumably be leery and will not try to steal it.
Consider then that the bait car has to be ordinary looking and cannot have cameras protruding or appear as though it has been prearranged as bait. Indeed, it ought to look like any other vehicle that might be normally parked in the locale and that would blend into the street scene. People do at times leave laptops laying in their backseat, and forgetfully leave their cellphone inside their vehicles, thus these are reasonably everyday aspects and not a facet that would somehow serve as a blazing clue that the vehicle is bait (in contrast, a car loaded with high-def TV screens, toasters, and the kitchen sink might be more suspect).
As an aside, some argue that bait cars are a form of entrapment and unfairly spur someone to break into the vehicles to get those showcased goodies or spark them to steal the car entirely. There are various legal and moral arguments and counterarguments involved. That’s also why some locales use the approach and others do not, depending upon their belief about the legality and whether this is an appropriate form of law enforcement.
Shifting gears, we might ponder the future of cars and how the nature of a bait car activity might take place once there are self-driving cars prevalent on our roadways.
Today’s interesting question is this: Might AI-based true self-driving cars be used as bait cars, or does that not make sense in an era of driverless or fully autonomous vehicles?
Let’s unpack the matter and see.
Understanding The Levels Of Self-Driving Cars
As a clarification, true self-driving cars are ones that the AI drives the car entirely on its own and there isn’t any human assistance during the driving task.
These driverless vehicles are considered a Level 4 and Level 5 (see my explanation at this link here), while a car that requires a human driver to co-share the driving effort is usually considered at a Level 2 or Level 3. The cars that co-share the driving task are described as being semi-autonomous, and typically contain a variety of automated add-on’s that are referred to as ADAS (Advanced Driver-Assistance Systems).
There is not yet a true self-driving car at Level 5, which we don’t yet even know if this will be possible to achieve, and nor how long it will take to get there.
Meanwhile, the Level 4 efforts are gradually trying to get some traction by undergoing very narrow and selective public roadway trials, though there is controversy over whether this testing should be allowed per se (we are all life-or-death guinea pigs in an experiment taking place on our highways and byways, some contend, see my coverage at this link here).
Since semi-autonomous cars require a human driver, the adoption of those types of cars won’t be markedly different than driving conventional vehicles, so there’s not much new per se to cover about them on this topic (though, as you’ll see in a moment, the points next made are generally applicable).
For semi-autonomous cars, it is important that the public needs to be forewarned about a disturbing aspect that’s been arising lately, namely that despite those human drivers that keep posting videos of themselves falling asleep at the wheel of a Level 2 or Level 3 car, we all need to avoid being misled into believing that the driver can take away their attention from the driving task while driving a semi-autonomous car.
You are the responsible party for the driving actions of the vehicle, regardless of how much automation might be tossed into a Level 2 or Level 3.
Self-Driving Cars And Bait Cars
For Level 4 and Level 5 true self-driving vehicles, there won’t be a human driver involved in the driving task.
All occupants will be passengers.
The AI is doing the driving.
Today’s self-driving cars can be readily spotted due to the rack of specialized sensory devices mounted on top of the vehicle, usually consisting of video cameras, radar, LIDAR, ultrasonic units, thermal imaging devices, and so on.
By-and-large, most automakers, and self-driving tech firms are using ordinary cars that are retrofitted with the high-tech needed for self-driving purposes. I point this out because some assert that we will eventually see a shift from using everyday cars to instead having an altogether new kind of car that is built solely and intentionally for self-driving proficiency (see my discussion about this at the topic at the link here).
How does this relate to the notion of bait cars?
If a self-driving car stands out as something other than an ordinary car, this will seem to make the self-driving car a chancy choice as a bait car. Presumably, car thieves would right away be worried that something is afoot, and they are being set up.
The irony, of sorts, is that a self-driving car has the kind of electronics and likely remote-control capabilities that makes it ideally suited as a bait car, at least with respect to the law enforcement perspective. Rather than the usual path of taking a car and trying to outfit it with remote control features, the likelihood is that an “ordinary” self-driving car already has all those facilities included.
In that manner of speaking, a self-driving car is a ready-to-go bait car.
The thing is, it won’t do much good as a bait car if the crooks realize it is a baited trick. We don’t know how smart fish are, but if a fish realizes that a worm on the hook is somehow suspicious, ostensibly the fish will swim right on past and not take the bait.
So, the point being that right now, using a self-driving car as a bait car is not particularly in the cards because it sticks out like a sore thumb. Car thieves would be hesitant to take it and thus the alluring characteristic as bait is over-the-top and unsavory therein. Also, they presumably might be especially suspicious concerning the boatload of electronics being able to track them, even if the self-driving car they are eyeing is not necessarily a bait car per se.
On that point, there is indeed merit.
Self-driving cars are going to be rolling along and recording their whereabouts, capturing video of anything around the vehicle, and likewise storing the other sensory data. This means that anyone that approaches the vehicle is essentially going to be automatically recorded. That’s not a desired trait for a car thief. I’ve emphasized that this also bodes for serious concerns about the privacy of us all since the self-driving car portends a “roving eye” that can note our daily movement and activities (for more on this qualm, see the link here).
In one manner of thinking, self-driving cars have a possibility of reducing crime due to the roving eye aspects, but this also potentially comes at the cost of keeping track of all of our whereabouts. Nobody can yet say how this will ultimately play out. Are we putting in place a Big Brother apparatus and we’ll relish doing so since it helps to undercut crime, or will the offset reduction in crime not be worth the loss of everyone’s privacy?
Returning to the focus on self-driving cars as a potential bait car, another reason that self-driving cars are not currently suitable candidates as a bait car is that there are so few of them. Car thieves usually want to steal a car that will not be immediately spotted as a stolen vehicle. Even if they could somehow steal a self-driving car, it would be easy to spot on our highways and byways.
Furthermore, self-driving cars are right now being pampered by the firms trying to get autonomous vehicles to work. Usually, at the end of a daily tryout on the streets and freeways, the self-driving car is brought to a special warehouse that exists as the maintenance and upkeep facility. Data is downloaded, new software patches are uploaded, and the vehicle is given a full inspection to make sure it is ready for the next day of experimental runs. In that semblance of things, self-driving cars are usually kept under rather strict lock-and-key and you aren’t going to just find them parked on the street in an everyday neighborhood.
We can somewhat reasonably cross-out today’s self-driving cars as bait cars.
But what about in the future?
Assuming that self-driving cars gradually become tenable, we can expect that there will be more of them deployed onto our roadways. Eventually, perhaps thousands upon many thousands will be deployed, and ultimately many millions.
There are about 250 million conventional cars in the United States alone, and it is anticipated that those will inevitably be usurped by the advent of self-driving cars. Whether we will need 250 million self-driving cars is an open question. Some contend that we can suffice with a much lower number of self-driving cars instead of today’s conventional and consumer-owned cars. Others believe that we will become quite dependent upon self-driving cars and will expand our number of driven miles extraordinarily, unleashing a kind of untapped demand, thus we will need zillions of self-driving cars, potentially raising far beyond the 250 million conventional cars of today.
Regardless of your opinion on the number of self-driving cars, we can all likely agree there will be a lot of them. This is an important point in the context of bait cars.
Imagine those self-driving cars are prevalent and no longer being pampered as they are today. We have gotten used to seeing self-driving cars. They are everywhere. In fact, on a daily journey, you see predominantly self-driving cars and very few conventional cars.
Guess what?
This means that self-driving cars could be used as bait cars. They would now be considered the norm of what is seen on the roadways. Having a self-driving car parked on a neighborhood street might be a common sight. Nobody gives a second glance toward a self-driving car.
In that way of thinking, pretty much all cars are once again looking the same, namely that they all look like self-driving cars. If you were to steal one, it will blend in as merely yet another self-driving car roaming around. Nobody would point and stare at the self-driving car. It has become part of the pack or herd of daily self-driving cars and no longer raises an eyebrow when spotted.
Law enforcement might be beset with criminals stealing self-driving cars. As such, the bait car of choice becomes a self-driving car. Tossing some goodies into the backseat or placed onto the front seat might still be a viable added lure. Of course, the future will presumably no longer be using the kinds of laptops and cellphones of today. One can only imagine what those devices will look like.
The car thieves are also bolstered by the fact that they don’t even have to drive the stolen vehicle. they can just get into the vehicle and have the AI drive off for them.
Keep in mind that true self-driving cars are being devised to disallow any human accessible driving controls. The idea, which has controversial considerations, would be that the AI driving system is always going to be driving the car and never a human passenger doing so (an added exception is the possibility of having a remotely placed human that can take over the driving controls, though this has tradeoffs too, see my column coverage on the matter).
Seems like a pretty sweet deal, allowing a car thief to steal a car, but not having to drive it, and merely go along for the ride to wherever they are intending to take the absconded vehicle.
All told, you can certainly then see why self-driving cars might be utilized in the future as bait cars. If self-driving cars are the norm, and if car thieves are stealing them, it makes obvious and straightforward sense to use self-driving cars as bait to catch the crooks.
Conclusion
There is a catch though, a big one.
Will it be possible to steal a self-driving car?
Some argue that it will be impossible to do so.
Here’s why.
For a conventional car, you get into the vehicle, turn the key to start the engine, or jimmy the vehicle to get the engine to start. You then drive away. The vehicle usually has no provision for videotaping you or otherwise reporting anything about the vehicle being underway (bait cars are the exception).
Self-driving cars will be chockful of recording equipment. The vehicle is also likely connected with a network that electronically is communicating with the car. The assumption is that self-driving cars are going to be tracked continually, doing so by whoever owns the vehicle or via the automaker or self-driving tech firm that crafted the systems.
The means of even starting the vehicle is also likely to be different than the approach used today. Rather than using a key, you’ll likely speak to the AI driving system, which might be using facial recognition to ascertain whether you are the appropriate passenger for the vehicle journey that the AI is going to undertake.
In short, the car thief would need to somehow convince the AI driving system to proceed, though presumably the car thief is not authorized to issue such commands or instructions. If somehow, they circumvented that aspect, the self-driving car is nonetheless likely to be conveying where it is going and doing so throughout a driving journey. And it will be recording who got into the vehicle and likely whatever they are doing while inside the self-driving car.
Thus, successfully stealing a self-driving car appears to be an unachievable crime.
You might be smarmy and say that you could potentially tow the self-driving car and steal it that way. Yes, maybe that is possible (though arguably so), but what do you do with the multi-ton paperweight once you get it to wherever you want to go? It still is presumably only going to work via the AI driving system.
Of course, where there is a will, there is a way.
Perhaps via cybersecurity aspects, it might be possible to fool or reprogram an AI driving system, convincing it to become, well, an accomplice in the crime. Will the everyday car thieve be familiar with those advanced techniques and technologies?
It is hard to say, though some believe that we are increasingly heading toward a crime sharing economy, whereby crooks will be savvy about high-tech embedded systems and readily buy and sell sneaky snippets of computer hacks to circumvent online systems security. One supposes that if that happens, the cat and mouse game will have to rachet up accordingly, and bait cars will be set up to seem like everyday self-driving cars but are actually rigged with booster-style capabilities that overcome the known hacks.
The final pinnacle will seem to be if AI becomes sentient, in which case, all bets are off and we really won’t know which AI opts to be good and which AI might turn to a life of crime.
Let’s hope that we won’t see headlines about AI having stolen yet another self-driving car.
Those dastardly AI-based sentient android crooks.
