Re: How does Road Patriot work?

[Robert Houk - SMCC Bos Desktop Hardware <rdh@UrQ.East.Sun.COM>]

   For those you who don't know what it is, it is a device invented for
   law-enforcement for high-speed chases. It is basically a remote-controlled
   little rocket slid that goes under the car, and somehow disable the engine
   management things.

   So how does it work? Anyone know?

Disregarding Ossifer Bob with his .44Magnum and armor-piercing bullets . . .

It is a massive "spark" discharge that fries the car's electronics as you
"short it out" driving over it (the film I saw shows a pretty good arc from
the gizmo on the road to the car chassis). It's phrased as "disables the
ignition", but I suspect it also takes out the ECU, A/C flap control elec-
tronics, stereo, driver's pacemaker, and any other solid-state electronics
in the vicinity of the car (OK, probably only anything connected to the
car's electrical system, which probably means the driver's pacemaker will
survive the experience...).

					-RDH