commentary by Michael L. Bromley
copyright 2005

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... of Automobiles

Feb 18/05: A reader sends this article regarding a big problem with little halogen lights and that circular culture of greed in the automobile manufacturing, repair, and insurance businesses:

Rash Of Headlight Thefts In Westchester, CT
Jan 7, 2005 11:57 am US/Eastern
(1010 WINS) (STAMFORD) If you have a luxury car, you've got a new worry -- thieves in Fairfield County may want to steal your headlights. Stamford police are investigating a series of thefts of Xenon headlights from high-end cars. While only a few crimes have been reported so far, more than 240 cases have been reported since August in Westchester County in New York.

Thieves use screwdrivers to puncture fenders and pry the ultra-bright headlights out of cars, said Sgt. Peter diSpagna, head of the department's property crimes unit. The Xenon lights cost as much as $600 each. Repairs could cost thousands more.

William Rehm, first deputy commissioner of the Westchester County Department of Public Safety, said there is a lucrative black market for the expensive bulbs and the attached transformers that provide their power. Police believe some auto body shops buy the lights and resell them at higher prices, Rehm said. The lights are popular in luxury cars, including BMWs, Audis and some Lexus models, police said. Rehm said the Lexus RX330 "appears to be the model of choice" for the thieves in Yonkers, Greenburgh and New Rochelle, N.Y., the three Westchester communities that have reported the most thefts. The Stamford cases involved an Audi, a BMW and a Nissan Maxima, diSpagna said. In one case, thieves ripped the front grill off a car to get access to the headlights, he said.

Yeah, no kidding. When a friggin' muskrat  tested out the laws of physics with my girlfriend's GS300 at 65 mph, it took four panels and a new secondary A/C system to prove Newton right. Gotta love them Toyota engineers and their car's wonderful dual-A/C, but for the Love of God three thousand bucks per muskrat ain't reciprocal bliss. Not even that $500 deductible brings any satisfaction, for, as our reader reminds us, when insurance pays up, it's all of us and not the insurance company that do the paying, if even bit by bit.

Our friend has suffered this lamp story miserably, and he refuses to sit down on. With his Lexus RX he's been twice to the body shop, costing thirty-two days and ugly chunks of the deductible on the $11,000 in bills. Eleven grand! Yesterday he vented on NYC's 1010 WINS with the station's street reporter John Montone, and he will not leave it at that. I'll be tracking this story and what's really going on with this insane situation. Lexus' initial reply is that it's only a problem in the NYC area. Great. Lot's of things are only a problem in NYC, but that don't make it acceptable. Makes it worse, in fact, for the Metropolitan area is where there are more luxury cars than most any other place.

With details to come, I'll leave you with this on the insurance game, which is the root of this problem: It's an industry built upon what in politics we call socialism, in this case, an exclusive, corporate socialism through which individual burdens are spread over the larger membership. As with any socialized program, it makes everything -- EVERYTHING -- more expensive. While automobile insurance, perhaps, must be, it is inexcusable for a vendor into the system either to ignore its role in those costs, or, worse, take advantage of it.

Are the car makers playing ball?
 

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