The city of St. Louis in Missouri plans to sue the automakers for it a little over a month after a risky TikTok trend resulted in the indiscriminate theft of automobiles in the US, mainly Hyundai and Kia car models. According to reports, there has been a sharp increase in auto thefts in the city in recent months, and the mayor and city council are now considering legal action against the two car manufacturers for producing vehicles with flaws that make them more easily stolen than other vehicles.
In a letter, City Counselor Sheena Hamilton demanded of Kia and Hyundai that they ‘mitigate the defective conditions providing thieves, including teenagers as young as 13 – the instruments by which they are destroying property, endangering city drivers and themselves, and, in some cases, committing violent felonies’.
‘Defective cars from Kia and Hyundai have put everyone who lives, works, or visits the city at peril of harm to their health, safety, and peace. It is your firms’ duty to lessen the public annoyance your carelessness has caused for the city and its citizens’, read the letter.
2,409 Hyundais and Kias have been reported stolen up until last month, up from just 205 at this time last year, a 1,075 percent rise. Although Kia is owned by Hyundai, the two businesses run independently. The Kia and Hyundai vehicles manufactured from 2010 to 2021 are the major targets of the TikTok challenge since they still use mechanical keys rather than electronic ones.
The challenge on the app invites players to take advantage of the increased theft risk by stealing the autos with the least amount of tools possible. The robbers are recording their crimes and publishing footage of them on TikTok with the hashtag ‘Kia Boys’. Over time, it has emerged as a significant trend, and the videos are generating inexplicable interest amongst the netizens.
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