Cops Counter TikTok With Wheel Locks

Tamara Wilfong turned the key on a bright yellow club locking her silver-lined steering wheel in place — and took a step towards protecting her newly purchased Hyundai from a rising tide of TikTok-driven theft. 

The 26-year-old was one of nearly 40 New Haveners to stop by the Beaver Hills police substation on Whalley Avenue Monday morning to pick up one of those steering-wheel locks amid an increase in popularity of video explainers elucidating how to exploit missing anti-theft technology across certain models of Kias and Hyundais.

Lt. Ryan Przybylski, the district commander for the Dwight and Whalley-Edgewood-Beaver Hills neighborhoods, distributed those clubs from 9:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. at 332 Whalley Ave. on President’s Day as part of a campaign to halt the theft of 2010 to 2021 Kias and Hyundais. 

The locks themselves were provided by Hyundai. Both Kia and Hyundai are sending locks to municipalities as they simultaneously prepare to offer free software upgrades to millions of affected car owners.

Kias and Hyundais have been targeted in car thefts because they still have mechanical ignitions without immobilizing anti-theft devices. Most cars manufactured in the 2010s are equipped with electronic immobilizers that prevent engines from revving up unless the correct key, typically a fob equipped for push-button starts, is utilized. 

The New Haven Police Department’s latest weekly crime report said that as of Feb. 5, the city has seen 86 car thefts so far this year. That’s up from 74 car theft by the same time last year. 

Przybylski said that roughly a year ago he noticed that Kias and Hyundais were being stolen at a higher rate than other makes. This winter, as more newspapers began documenting that phenomenon across the country, Pryzbylski said he returned to the numbers and found that in his own district of Edgewood, Dwight and Kensington, Kias and Hyundais were stolen more than twice as frequently as all other cars in the area.

The hacking of Kia and Hyundai ignitions has grown in particular over the past year in tandem with the proliferation of videos across TikTok and other social channels instructing and, in some cases, encouraging or challenging viewers to start someone else’s car with as little as a USB cord.

“I feel bad for all these people, they’re just trying to get to work,” Lt. Przybylski told the Independent as he handed out the locks. ​“It’s a big problem. Hopefully everyone I give away is one less stolen car.” 

Pryzbylski got in touch with Hyundai who shipped the locks to New Haven. He said the next step is to get additional locks from Kia and schedule additional times for distribution of the anti-theft devices.

Corporate spokespeople for Kia and Hyundai both told the Independent that in addition to sending out free locks, owners of relevant models will be notified over the next few months about opportunities to install electronic immobilizers for free. Read their public statements here and here.

TikTokkers specifically are ​“stealing for the thrill of it and joyriding,” Przybylski said of New Haven’s car thefts, stating that most of the Kias and Hyundais are ultimately found abandoned around the city or utilized for other misdeeds like purse snatchings at the nearby Hamden Plaza. Since the perpetrators of those car thefts are not frequently found by the police, Przybylski noted, it’s difficult to understand exactly who is behind the actions; though other papers have reported on children and teens hijacking others’ vehicles thanks to TikTok guides and incentives.

Over the course of the morning, plenty of New Haveners dropped by Przybylski’s anti-theft booth and whipped out their car registrations to receive the steering-wheel locks, sharing either stories of previously having had their cars stolen or hearing through social media about friends, family and even acquaintances losing their Hyundais and Kias.

Stolen Car? What A Drag

Wilfong said she stopped by the substation as a proactive measure after seeing a fellow Hyundai owner and friend post on Facebook about having her car stolen. She also wanted to avoid a repeat of when her 2019 Kia was stolen just two years earlier and she ​“had to steal it back.”

She bought the Hyundai only a few weeks ago to navigate back-to-back job interviews and daycare drop-off of her three-year-old son when she learned the car had the same technological faults as her old Kia, which was stolen off the side street on which she lives in Newhallville, after she accidentally left one of her two keys inside the vehicle.

Wilfong later found her car on the streets of Fair Haven — and jumped right back into the driver’s seat to bring it home. The Kia was then totaled in an ensuing car crash. ​“It was just cursed,” she said of the Kia. Her next car, a Nissan, was also lost in a collision. Now, she is trying her best to preserve her latest mode of transport, the Hyundai.

On Monday, Lt. Przybylski showed Wilfong how to position the lock, a long metal pole with wings that grip the sides of the steering wheel, so that the long side of the anti-theft device hits the car’s roof and prohibits the wheel from turning.

Wilfong said she relies on stable access to a car to deal with the spontaneities of parenthood and life itself. She recently lost her job as a financial advisor at Stone Academy, a private career school with three campuses around Connecticut that closed abruptly last week due to lack of compliance with the state Office of Higher Education.

Marice, 55, and Barth McNeil, ​“over 55,” on the other hand, said the recent theft of their Hyundai was less an inconvenience as it was a violation. 

They were running errands in their Edgewood neighborhood one day when they realized their car was not where they had left it. ​“Did we have a ticket we forgot to pay?” was Barth’s first question.

“We reported it to the police and they were very responsive. They told us to go to the records department and check to see if there were outstanding bills or reasons the car would’ve been towed. Then they gave us a case number,” he said.

They were driving their other car — a Kia — to a drag show at a Unitarian Church in Madison that night when the cops called to say they’d recovered the vehicle parked illegally in a permitted zone.

“But the drag show!” Marice exclaimed, before agreeing to drive 30 minutes right back to reclaim the car at the cost of missing the ​“sold-out show.”

The window had been smashed in, the steering column broken, and the entire center console removed. The McNeils said they will have to pay $1,600 to fix the car, but aren’t in a rush.

Marice works from home and rarely needs access to their Kia. Barth said he primarily takes the bus to get from place to place now that he’s retired, though he depended on the car years back to travel to his work in Westport. 

“When it was stolen, I just thought we’ll get the insurance and deal with one car,” Marice said. Barth added that hanging onto the cars is mostly about maximizing convenience and avoiding arranging one’s life around bus schedules. ​“If the buses ran more frequently, it would be very convenient for us to just use public transportation,” he said. 

They said they bought the Hyundai because it was relatively inexpensive compared to other options — and because it had ​“good safety features.” Unfortunately, Barth said, protection against theft was not included in the well-marketed crash safety ratings. ​“I wish someone had mentioned that years ago,” he said.

As for TikTok, Marice mentioned, ​“I think they’re irresponsible for not removing these videos.”

“Didn’t they in the sixties ban publication of a book that shows you how to make bombs?” she said, recalling the 1971 Anarchist Cookbook penned by Vietnam War Protestor William Powell. (The text was never formerly banned in the United States although Powell himself advocated for withdrawing the manual from circulation following realizations that perpetrators of various hate crimes around the country had referenced the book to craft explosives.) ​“What’s the difference between these things… except a couple million more followers.”