260 Avoid the Cars Being Stolen
260 汽车防盗
Speeding off in a stolen car, the thief thinks he has got a great catch. But he is in for an unwelcome surprise. The car is fitted with a remote immobiliser, and a radio signal from a control centre miles away will ensure that once the thief switches the engine off, he will not be able to start it again.
贼开着一辆偷来的车逃之夭夭，他想：这下可赚了一大笔。但他意想不到的是，这辆车装有遥控锁止器，来自几英里外控制中心的无线电信号可以确保一旦贼关上引擎，就再也无法启动。
The idea goes like this. A control box fitted to the car contains a mini-cellphone, a micro-processor and memory, and a GPS satellite positioning receiver. If the car is stolen, a coded cellphone signal will tell the control centre to block the vehicle’s engine management system and prevent the engine being restarted.
该装置工作原理如下：在汽车上的控制盒里装有一个微型无线电话，一个微处理器和存储器，还有一个全球定位系统卫星定位接受器。如果车被盗，一个带有编码的无线电话信号会告诉控制中心封锁汽车引擎管理系统，防止引擎再次启动。
In the UK, a set of technical fixes is already making life harder for car thieves. ‘The pattern of vehicle crime has changed,’ says Martyn Randall, a security expert. He says it would only take him a few minutes to teach a person how to steal a car, using a bare minimum of tools. But only ifhttp://www.100ksw.com/ the car is more than 10 years old.
在英国，一套技术装备会使得偷车贼的日子过得很艰难。安全专家马丁·兰德尔说：“车辆犯罪的形式已经发生了变化，只需几分钟就可以教会一个人用最少的工具偷到一辆车。但条件是这辆车出产已经10年以上。”
Modern cars are far tougher to steal, as their engine management computer won’t allow them to start unless they receive a unique ID code beamed out by the ignition key. In the UK, technologies like this have helped achieve a 31% drop in vehicle-related crime since 1997.
现代车辆很难被偷，因为管理引擎的电脑无法启动引擎，除非它收到由点火钥匙发出的独特身份码。在英国，从1997年以来，这种技术已经使车辆犯罪下降31%。
But determined criminals are still managing to find other ways to steal cars, often by getting bold of the owner’s keys. And key theft is responsible for 40% of the thefts of vehicles fitted with a tracking system.
但是顽固的犯罪分子仍然在设法找其他方法偷车，通常是设法拿到车主的钥匙。装有定位系统的车辆因钥匙丢失而被盗占总数的40%。
If the car travels 100 metres without the driver confirming their ID, the system will send a signal to an operations centre that it has been stolen. The hundred metres minimum avoids false alarms due to inaccuracies in the GPS signal.
如果汽车开出100米，而司机仍没核实身份，系统将发出信号传输给操作中心，表明汽车已经被盗。至少100米内的运行可以避免因全球定位系统信号不准确而导致的错误警告。
Staff at the centre will then contact the owner to confirm that the car really is missing, and keep police informed of the vehicle’s movements via the car’s GPS unit.
中心的工作人员会联络车主证明汽车是否真的被盗，并利用全球定位系统通知警察局汽车的行驶方向。