By David Shepardson
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A senior U.S. senator on Wednesday called on major automakers and the Transportation Department to take action to address an “alarming” rise in carjackings in some major cities.
Senate Judiciary chair Dick Durbin, a Democrat, asked the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, which represents nearly all major automakers, and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg to develop “uniform standards for swift law enforcement access to vehicle location tracking data in carjacking incidents.”
Durbin said accessing vehicle tracking information from cars that are stolen from owners “can take law enforcement hours or even weeks.”
A number of U.S. cities including New York, Chicago, Philadelphia and Washington have reported big jumps in carjackings in recent years, including many involving teenagers and thefts at gunpoint.
CNN reported this week that Chicago had more than 1,800 carjackings in 2021, up about 30% over 2020 and more than five times the number in 2014, while CBS reported carjackings in Philadelphia have almost tripled since 2019 and Washington had carjackings jump by about 20% in 2021, the Washington Post reported.
Buttigieg’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Alliance for Automotive Innovation spokesman Don Stewart said the group would continue to work with Durbin “on this important issue. We’ve had good conversations with stakeholders in Illinois and elsewhere on this topic and those will continue.”
Last month, U.S. Representative Mary Gay Scanlon was robbed of her automobile at gunpoint in a Philadelphia park.
Scanlon, a Democrat who represents Pennsylvania’s 5th Congressional District, was unharmed in the mid-afternoon carjacking which occurred following a meeting of elected officials, city police said.
(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Chris Reese and Grant McCool)
