> "disabling a vehicle remotely at a in a way that puts the driver at risk, not only should be illegal but a criminal liability"
This actually happened to me some years ago. I rented a car from one of those "on demand" rental services - a Zipcar competitor who are no longer in business (AFAIK). While picking it up from Heathrow airport, either I managed to not unlock the car correctly from the app, or the device inside the car which controls this was buggy/faulty. Either way, I was still able to start the car and drive away normally.
But after about 10 minutes of driving, the car suddenly stalled and shut down in a live running lane on the M4(!!) and would not restart. Thankfully traffic was slow moving at the time so there wasn't too much danger of being rear-ended at high speed. Called the customer support line from within the app and within about 30 seconds of explaining the problem the car was unlocked again and started normally. The way they responded to my situation so quickly and without seeming at all surprised suggested that it was certainly not the first time it had happened...
This actually happened to me some years ago. I rented a car from one of those "on demand" rental services - a Zipcar competitor who are no longer in business (AFAIK). While picking it up from Heathrow airport, either I managed to not unlock the car correctly from the app, or the device inside the car which controls this was buggy/faulty. Either way, I was still able to start the car and drive away normally.
But after about 10 minutes of driving, the car suddenly stalled and shut down in a live running lane on the M4(!!) and would not restart. Thankfully traffic was slow moving at the time so there wasn't too much danger of being rear-ended at high speed. Called the customer support line from within the app and within about 30 seconds of explaining the problem the car was unlocked again and started normally. The way they responded to my situation so quickly and without seeming at all surprised suggested that it was certainly not the first time it had happened...