January 13, 2025 • 25 mins
Aaron Zeigler, President and CEO Zeigler Auto Group joins the podcast alongside a panel of industry experts to discuss automotive theft in the United States. Also joining this episode is Zeigler-sponsored Nascar Driver, Carson Hocevar.
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Episode Transcript
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Detective Valles (00:05):
We actually have been successful recovery of
cars being stolen fromdealerships quicker and from the
consumer.
Sam D'Arc (00:16):
Welcome, everyone, to the driving vision podcast
brought to you by the ZiglerAuto Group. I'm your host, Sam
Dark. Be sure to subscribe tothe podcast. Like it if you do,
and leave a comment. Hey,everybody.
Welcome to the car dealershipguy industry spotlight. I'm your
host, Sam Dark. And today, I'mjoined by president and CEO of
Ziegler Auto Group, AaronZiegler. Melissa High will come
(00:38):
to you in a moment. DetectiveJosh Fallows, Carrie Anne
Thomas, and NASCAR race cardriver, Carson Hocevar, will
come to you in a moment todiscuss the challenges that are
auto theft in America today.
Today's episode is brought toyou by LoJack. Now let's go into
the episode. So Aaron Ziegler,president and CEO of Ziegler
(00:59):
Auto Group. Over 1,000,000vehicles were stolen in 2023
according to the NICB at a costof over $8,000,000,000 to
Americans. How does this impactyour business and, more
importantly, your customers?
Aaron Zeigler (01:13):
Yeah. It's become a huge issue out there, in the
industry and and really in thenation. So we had 72 cars stolen
in 6 months that we did not getback before before we started
using LoJack. That number wentdown to almost nothing after
using LoJack. But it was over$4,000,000 cost to us, and it
was gonna put us out of businessif we we kept going.
(01:34):
So we had to come up withsomething to combat that, and
LoJack has been a, a wonderfulproduct for that.
Sam D'Arc (01:41):
So you have to you have to implement creative
solutions to big problems tofind solutions. How did you how
did you come across this as asolution?
Aaron Zeigler (01:48):
Well, I didn't have the expertise to figure out
how to, to stop the stuffproblem, so I just hired Carrie
Anne. And
Carson Hocevar (01:55):
Yeah.
Aaron Zeigler (01:55):
She was she's the foremost expert in the world.
I'm auto theft. And, she youknow, so it was really her that
came up with with LoJack and theother, processes that we put in
place.
Sam D'Arc (02:05):
So Carrie Ann Thomas, head of security, Ziegler Auto
Group, who was police chief inKalamazoo, Aaron Ziegler came to
you and said, hey. We want youto join the Ziegler Auto Group
and help us out with this. Whatwere your thoughts in that
moment?
Karianne Thomas (02:16):
My thoughts are, you know, I'd like to stay
retired, but I'll try to helpyou out. And his instructions to
me were fix it. And, you know,we jumped right in and looked at
all the solutions because it'slayers of solutions. Right?
Yeah.
But one of the biggest things islot management, knowing where
our cars are all the time. Andin partnering with LoJack, we
are able to do that on a dailybasis, which then, you know,
leads our customers being ableto do the same thing, always
(02:39):
knowing where your car is,making sure you're in possession
and not the bad guys.
Sam D'Arc (02:42):
So Melissa High VP LoJack, it's interesting. Carrie
Anne mentioned Aaron set up theproblem. It is a problem of
theft. Carrie Anne reinforcesit's a problem. What is the
trend line?
Is it getting worse? Is itgetting better?
Melissa High (02:56):
So it's still very strong of a situation. Right?
We're still seeing high theftacross the nation, even into
Canada, even into international.Right? A lot of vehicles stolen
off lots or stolen from theconsumer, right, stolen from our
customers.
So it is a big issue, across thecountry, and that's where we
have really invested into ourlaw enforcement partners,
(03:20):
because they are instrumentalpartners to us serving our
dealers and their customersenrolled in LoJack when it comes
to aiding and recovery. So weinvested into LoJack for law
enforcement which is a datadriven insight technology that
we put all the insights of thosevehicles that are reported
stolen in the palms of the handsof LoJack nationally. It allows
(03:42):
them to cross jurisdictionallycommunicate, tag these vehicles
for safety, see real timemovements, directional insights
of where the vehicle's been, allthe trip history. So it's really
since February of this year, wehave made that investment as a
company, and we're gonnacontinue to further enhance
those features.
Sam D'Arc (04:02):
So before we go into that, because we do wanna talk
about this, this is this is aninteresting feature that you
have that probably few othershave. Before we go there,
detective Alice, you're here inFlorida, and we're gonna talk
about why we're here nearHomestead Raceway in just a
minute, but that that's you.Here's what I don't get. We live
in the most amazing timetechnologically. Technology is
(04:22):
available in every single carthat we as an auto group sell
right now.
The manufacturers can know whereevery car is at every moment. I
don't understand why, given thatfact, if I am driving down the
road, somebody carjacks my car,steals it out of a hotel, I call
the police, why can't you justgo after that car?
Detective Valles (04:41):
So one of one of the main things is the, bad
guys out there, they learn asmuch as the manufacturers where
the tracking systems that themanufacturers place on the
vehicle. Ah. So as soon as theysteal the car, the first thing
that they go to attack is theantenna system, the infotainment
system, defeating the OEM'sfeatures in the vehicle to be
(05:01):
able to steal it and not berecovered. So through one of the
organizations that I'm part of,the International Association of
Auto Theft investigators, Notonly are we not for profit, but
we also educate law enforcementin trying to defeat that. So one
of our partners that, LoJack hasnot only joined us so that we
(05:23):
could grid, bridge that gapbetween law enforcement and the
theft, trying to help theconsumer, trying to help the
dealerships try to recover thecars faster using another tool
that's out there that's weactually have been successful in
recovering cars being stolenfrom dealerships quicker and
from the consumers.
Sam D'Arc (05:40):
So bad guy steals the car, they take it off the lot,
they rip that stuff out. Let'ssay they don't rip the stuff
out. Do you have an easypipeline into communicating with
manufacturers?
Detective Valles (05:50):
So Austin, there is obstacles. You're gonna
call that your 1-eight hundrednumber, and trying to get that
car recovered quicker. If thecar hasn't been entered into,
let's say, the NCIC, theNational Criminal Information
Center, and the car is notactively stolen, there is a gap
between that. Other tools outthere, like LoJack,
automatically, we haverepresentatives available. We're
(06:11):
able to call them, trying totrack that car through now the
law enforcement app, and wecould physically see the car,
try to get them recoveredquicker.
Sam D'Arc (06:19):
Carrie Anne, you've had that problem. You've made
phone calls when vehicles havebeen stolen, and you would think
it'd be easy because everybodyknows where that car is. Let's
say that the the device is leftin the vehicle. It's not always
that easy to get access to.
Karianne Thomas (06:31):
No. And I think, like the detective said,
right, you're calling a 1 800number. Every manufacturer has a
different system they have setup. It there's no uniformity. So
if you have a couple of vehiclesstolen out of your driveway,
right, and they're differentmanufacturers, the response is
going to be totally different.
And the more time that elapses,the less chance of recovery.
Sam D'Arc (06:49):
So who came up with this idea at LoJack to create
this? If I understand it right,what you said, you've got, like,
a a single system, a singledatabase that you're making
available to law enforcementwhere if I'm law enforcement, I
can log in and I can see everyvehicle that's stolen currently
on LoJack, and I can see itacross the country.
Melissa High (07:06):
Right? Yes. So knowing that stolen vehicles are
becoming a major issue, right,for our dealers, it's costly
too. It's extremely costly. Soand then instilling peace of
mind and really being acomplement to the connected car
technology that the OEMs areinstalling at the factory.
Right? Mhmm. So what did we needto do? We needed to develop
(07:27):
something that createdefficiency and speed because as
Kerian and detective Velez said,the faster that law enforcement
has line of sight to the vehiclethat's reported stolen and in
the NCIC database as a validstolen vehicle, the faster they
get that information, the moreprobable it is to recover that
vehicle. So in looking at whatwe needed to do to be to serve
(07:50):
as corporate responsibility,social responsibility, to do our
due diligence for our dealerpartners and then the customers
enrolling in LoJack was okay howdo we take the data that we have
and really get it into the palmsof the hands of law enforcement
as soon as possible and asefficient as possible?
Also
Sam D'Arc (08:10):
In fact, NICB would say if it's reported within 24
hours and there's access totracking on it, so it hasn't
been ripped out, there'scommunication with whoever has
the tracking, the the likelihoodof recovering that grows to 34%.
Aaron, is 34% a good number? No.That's horrible. We're like 98%.
(08:31):
Yeah.
Aaron Zeigler (08:31):
But you when when a car is stolen, you have
minutes, not hours. Yeah. So 24hours, it's gone.
Sam D'Arc (08:37):
It's gone.
Aaron Zeigler (08:37):
That car is already overseas. Like and we've
actually got some cars that wehad tracked that were in
shipping containers, so we gotthem back. Yeah.
Sam D'Arc (08:43):
Because as
Aaron Zeigler (08:44):
soon as they go overseas, they're gone.
Sam D'Arc (08:45):
Yeah. So the 20 the 24 hour metric is ridiculous.
34% success rate, detective. No.It is not.
That's not success. You wouldn'ttake a 34% bit No.
Aaron Zeigler (08:54):
That'll get 34% of any business gets fired or
bankrupt. Right?
Sam D'Arc (08:57):
And a 34% on NASCAR is not good.
Carson Hocevar (09:00):
Yeah. It's not good.
Aaron Zeigler (09:01):
Hey, Sonny.
Carson Hocevar (09:02):
What percentage may be okay, but
Melissa High (09:04):
No. And one thing to that point, Sam, is we spent
about and huge thank you toCarrie Ann, the Ziegler
Organization, as well as theEffective Elijah's unit, as well
as many other units out there,but they've been instrumental,
you all have been instrumentalin getting us in front of the
law enforcement agencies acrossthe country to tell us what we
(09:26):
needed to put in this app,right. We didn't just say, oh,
we're going to design this andput it in the hands of law
enforcement and then realize,oh, we made this investment and
it's not something that'spowerful enough to aid them,
right. So that's where we spentabout a year and a half going
around and actually speakingwith law enforcement agencies,
subject matter experts such asCarrie Ann, Ziegler, you know,
(09:49):
organization, true partners ofours that we can then say okay,
this is what we need to investin and then scale from here. So
since we've launched it inFebruary, it was our soft
launch, we have over 5,000officers and it's growing
rapidly by the day and we'reinvesting the time to say okay,
what else do you need in thisapp?
Because one thing we all knowabout law enforcement, resources
(10:11):
are tight, budgets are tight. Soanything we can do to aid them,
they're instrumental to thesuccess for all of us.
Sam D'Arc (10:18):
Why aren't there more tools like this? Like, there's
nothing crazy proprietary uniqueabout this. It's just that you
did it. Right? You created thistool.
What are the biggest obstaclesto this existing elsewhere,
detective? Like, why doesn'tthis already exist? Like, it's
crazy to me.
Detective Valles (10:32):
It's definitely a growing trend.
Yeah. Things get old. Differenttechniques of how to steal a
car, get older. Yeah.
The same way that they'redeveloping new ideas on how to
protect a vehicle from beingstolen. Yeah. These guys are out
there to defeat. Yeah. The badguys are out there trying to
defeat that.
So you have to keep on evolvingand trying to develop a better
product. Definitely, you know,LoJack is on the right on the
(10:55):
right track, and there's othermanufacturers need to step up
their, game on that side toprevent to be able to prevent
those deaths. Yeah.
Karianne Thomas (11:04):
And, Sam, I just wanna add, like, our law
enforcement officers, they'recrime fighters. They wanna go
find these stolen cars. Right?They wanna solve crimes. That's
in their DNA.
Yeah. And when you give them atool to do that, they're gonna
be looking all the time becausethey have the correct tool.
Right? And there just hasn'tbeen one easy tool that has
allowed them to do that.
Sam D'Arc (11:21):
Yeah. What would you say, detective, to people out
there that see this crime andsay, well, you know what? It's a
police problem. They just don'treally wanna go find the bad
guys. Well,
Detective Valles (11:29):
to express to the consumers out there, on the
law enforcement side, especiallythe the things that I do on a
daily basis, networking is bigon ourselves, not only for the
consumer, but also for theprivate sector. Expressing to
the dealerships what the newtrends are, what to look for to
prevent those thefts. So ifthere's no communication from
(11:50):
both sides, from the consumer,from the victims out there, and
us in law enforcement relatingit through our training, We do
continuous training throughoutthe year trying to give the
those law enforcement officersfrom uniform to investigators
the tools needed to be able tosolve these crimes and prevent
them. Nothing would nothingwould work. So
Sam D'Arc (12:09):
So, Melissa, somebody watching this podcast is part of
law enforcement. They're like,hey. That's a cool idea. I'd
like to figure out how to beable to utilize this service.
What, how do they find out moreinformation?
Where do they get moreinformation about this tool?
Melissa High (12:21):
So we have they could reach out to our LoJack
support number, and there's alink I can have you add to the
podcast. But, basically, they gothrough the process of being
vetted. We do vet all lawenforcement officers just to
make sure they're actively, youknow, affiliated to a government
agency. We make sure the chiefof police or the sergeant of the
(12:42):
unit is aware and we have 3 teammembers in LoJack. They are
LoJack law enforcement liaisons.
So their specialty, they're allformer law enforcement and their
specialty is not only vettingand getting our law enforcement
officers enrolled, but alsoescalations. So they are heavily
involved with subpoenas,warrants, escalated cases that
(13:05):
are under surveillance or theFBI or special task force units
are involved in. That's theirlevel of expertise. Like, that's
where they come into play a biginstrumental role in bridging
that gap even from, let's say,my broader account management
team serving the dealers towhere then it crosses over to
that fine line of, like, okay,we have to fall and on the side
(13:26):
of the law. Right?
So we, by all mean basically,they reach out to our customer
support team. We then bridge itover to our liaisons, and
they're vetted, and then they'reonboarded.
Sam D'Arc (13:37):
So so Aaron gave a couple of really interesting
examples of these vehicles thatwere stolen, got put into
containers. Mhmm. The systemactivated. Law enforcement was
activated. They went and gotthem.
You must have multiple storieslike that on a regular basis.
Like Yeah. Like, is there everone that just shocks you and
you're like, I can't believe werecovered that. Right?
Melissa High (13:56):
So we we had one recent story that actually was
right after the release ofLoJack Elle. The vehicle was
stolen out of Minnetonka andJersey State Police identified
it in the app, saw that thevehicle was coming up, the
turnpike headed into New York,was able to communicate to NYPD
(14:17):
and they recovered it going overthe bridge. I mean, that's how
quick and efficient
Sam D'Arc (14:22):
That's the way it should be.
Melissa High (14:23):
Yes. Totally. Yes.
Sam D'Arc (14:24):
That's my drama too.
Melissa High (14:25):
We've seen, I mean, how many times we see
vehicles stolen in in, like,parking garages Yeah. Where if
you didn't have the tool andhave an understanding of how
LoJack functions or how LoJackLE works and the insights that
are shown there, you wouldthink, oh, I'm never gonna
recover this vehicle, right? Butby us having this technology and
(14:46):
this second layer of protectionand saying okay no this device
is pinging, it's in the hands oflaw enforcement, they'll do
their due diligence and then goaid in the recovery and you know
know how to identify like it'sit's containers, same thing,
once the container starts movingwe're gonna see that. We had one
case, I was working with thedetectives till all hours, it
(15:07):
went on for days and I waspleading please we have to
recover and he would say calmdown, calm down, we're gonna
recover but we needed to cross,we needed to cross over into the
port line because we're gonnapull the container. In that
container was not only ourvehicles recovered
Sam D'Arc (15:22):
for the dealers Others.
Karianne Thomas (15:23):
But a
Melissa High (15:23):
lot of others.
Carson Hocevar (15:24):
Yeah.
Melissa High (15:24):
So we're aiding in also recovery of vehicles that
weren't equipped with low jobs.
Sam D'Arc (15:28):
You're taking back some of that $8,000,000,000 Yes.
Annual loss. I think what'sinteresting is I think, Erin,
when we first heard of the wordLoJack, what did we think of?
Like, there's that LoJack deviceway back from decades ago was
that bar. Right?
Yeah. Exactly. This iscompletely different new
technology.
Aaron Zeigler (15:44):
They use the same name because the brand Yeah.
Name is
Sam D'Arc (15:47):
Oh, by Solar.
Aaron Zeigler (15:47):
Is strong.
Karianne Thomas (15:48):
Yeah.
Aaron Zeigler (15:48):
Yeah. But but Solera, it's Solera's product,
and and, it's worked very well
Sam D'Arc (15:53):
for us. As a company, you've innovated, and you've
come a long way. Aaron oftentalks about how most people make
the mistake of not beingaggressive enough. The auto
group, Sigler Auto Group doesn'tmake that mistake. It's great
that you've evolved a productover time, which brings us the
reason why this guy's here withus today.
So we're here in Florida nearHomestead, the raceway.
Tomorrow, you're going to takethe track here at Homestead,
(16:15):
number 77 Spire, race car. Andtwo names will be on that. The
Ziegler name, which has been onmany, cars this year, and then
LoJack's part of the co primarysponsorship. Two questions for
you.
You've just heard Melissadescribe the law enforcement
app. Could you steal a car givenyour, your your, your driving,
capability
Carson Hocevar (16:36):
Go ahead. Straight
Karianne Thomas (16:37):
out. People is supposed to say you, Kirk?
Carson Hocevar (16:39):
Is it is it low, Jack, or is it you? Well, the
surprise factor is completelygone. Oh, okay. So, Aries got a
car outside.
Sam D'Arc (16:48):
Let's put this thing to a test. I
Aaron Zeigler (16:50):
feel like this
Sam D'Arc (16:51):
should be a YouTube video. The
Carson Hocevar (16:52):
problem well, the problem is the car that I
would wanna steal from the ZingoAuto Group if I was to ever
steal 1 is gonna say 77 on it.It's the Camaro. So it would be
very, very difficult to hidethat in plain sides.
Sam D'Arc (17:05):
Does anyone ever try to steal a NASCAR? I mean,
they're very expensive cars. Imean
Carson Hocevar (17:08):
There's been people not mine or anybody that
I know of, but there's beentimes that people have stolen
race cars, and it's been byaccident.
Sam D'Arc (17:15):
Someone gotten us a pace car once or once. Well,
yeah. Around.
Carson Hocevar (17:18):
Yeah. But they've they've stolen race cars
by accident because they wannasteal the trailer
Sam D'Arc (17:22):
or Yeah.
Carson Hocevar (17:23):
They get down the road. They get wherever
they're going, and then theyopen it to see what they got.
And they realize, oh, there's arace car in here. So there's
been a lot of stories of a racecar just on the side of the road
somewhere, you know, 30, 40miles down the road, because,
you know, that resale value.Number 1, it'd be easy to come
(17:43):
across.
I don't normally find a race caron marketplace. And number 2, it
pretty much says the name andthen exactly who you took it
from. So It's a unique Everytime somebody ever has taken a
race car, it's always byaccident, and they wanna give it
back as soon as possible.
Sam D'Arc (17:58):
So the LoJack app provides detective anything you
have to add
Detective Valles (18:02):
to that. Right? Correct. Not a big marker
provider.
Sam D'Arc (18:04):
Yeah. What would you see if you saw an abandoned
NASCAR on the side of the
Detective Valles (18:07):
road? Somebody picked up, stole the wrong
trailer.
Sam D'Arc (18:10):
Yeah. So, your car and your team provide you a ton
of analytics, some of which aresimilar to what LoJack provides.
LoJack in the app, you havespeed. You can put speed alerts.
You have geofencing.
You can say when a vehicle goesoutside that that geofence. How
important is the data analyticsthat you get to being a NASCAR
driver into winning?
Carson Hocevar (18:30):
Yeah. For us, I mean, it's the it's why
everybody's so good now reallyis, you if somebody, you know,
has a certain technique thatthey've been super good at this
racetrack, it's now no secret.Like, if they're on the throttle
50 feet before you, you can knowthat within them doing, like,
live. It it's live. So, that'swhy qualifying is so important
(18:53):
and everybody's so tied is thesecond you it's why it's such a
disadvantage to go early inqualifying now because the
second you run wide open a 100%throttle, the next 10 guys run
wide open.
Sam D'Arc (19:05):
Yeah.
Carson Hocevar (19:05):
And they instantly know where it used to
be, oh, you know, like, wealways used to drivers hate
analytics because there's adifference between driver wide
open and analytic wide open.That not that 98% that we'd lift
2% instantly, our engineers aresaying, we didn't run wide open.
You didn't run a 100%, where 10,15 years ago, they were able to
(19:25):
get away with that. Yeah. It waswide open.
Yeah. That was easy. Oh, yeah.So Yeah. For us and me, like,
being super new and everythingthat it's I mean, you could see
my steering trace.
You could see the GPS. They haveGPSs, and they show exactly
where we are. We can compareeverybody in the field's,
throttle, brake, lateral g. Imean, just I think if I sneezed
(19:48):
in there, you'd probably knowit. But for us, I mean, it's
super crucial and important.
And for us as a team growing,it's even more important for us
because we can look at thebetter cars, and they can know
what adjustments to make. Theycan develop year to year from,
you know, when we come back inthe spring. They could compare
(20:08):
our car to, you know, the bestcars here, but we can actually
download their data, go to thesimulator, upload their driving
characteristics to the sim. Wecould and then when I'm in the
simulator, it will show acomparison, like, I'm on the
racetrack, like, it would, youknow, my lap compared to Kyle
(20:28):
Larson's lap or whoever that itwould have the lap to lap. Well,
now I'm doing it in thesimulator, and now I can see his
throttle trace.
I can see his Wow. Steering. Icould see everything. And when I
first started driving cup carsin the simulator, I drove a cup
car in the sim for a year inadvance before ever driving 1 in
real life. And my job wasliterally just to match the
(20:51):
drivers.
Like, it wasn't to make the carbetter, it was to match the cup
drivers. So then my feedback inthe sim was the same as theirs
on the racetrack. So, I mean,for a year, they just taught me
how to How to drive. How tomatch a cup driver. So
Sam D'Arc (21:05):
So those data, those analytics delivered to you
quickly, timely so you can learnfrom them, have put you in a
spot as we near the end of thisyear where you're on the verge
of winning a pretty coolaccolade. You mentioned yourself
being a brand new driver. Tellus about rookie of the year and
how close you are to to closingthat out.
Carson Hocevar (21:22):
Yeah. So Go jinx yourself, though. Well, I mean,
it'd be really an play on Aaron.Well, for us to lose it right
now, it'd be really difficult.Oh, don't say that.
Well, we have 99 point leadright now. As long as we get 18
points more than the 4, we lockup. Oh, yeah. But even too as he
would have to basically win bothstages and win the race in the
(21:44):
next 2 but you'd have to winhe'd have to max out, and we'd
have to, like, max fail,basically, To, you know, we'd
have to have both ends of thespectrum for the next 2 races.
But, yeah, every all signs pointto to being pretty good.
But one thing that I justthought of about the data and
everything is Jeff Dickerson,our owner at Spire, he laughed,
(22:06):
saying if he had a a dataanalytic or you anything, he'd
probably be a race car driverinstead of a owner because he
laughed. He said he saw one one,you know, dirt spring car,
whatever, and they finally putdata on the thing. And, you
know, 2 or 3 years ago, he'slooking at all this data because
it was so new, and it's it'spretty new technology we have.
(22:27):
And he just looked. He goes,that right there is why I did
not make it as a race cartracker.
He's like, I was one one look atSMT comparing myself to just
realize, man, I was doing thatall wrong.
Sam D'Arc (22:39):
Yeah. You know what's so interesting is you talk about
that and and, again, theimportance of data, analytics,
going back to this, going backto the business, Aaron's
business, like, having thatinformation is so crucial to
being successful in business, tolistening to it, to getting it,
quickly. So, detective, whatwhat has it meant to you in your
battle as we wrap up here tofight crime, to stop crime, to
(23:01):
stop vehicle theft, to have someof these different tools? And is
there anything else you need,that the public, that the
business world could give youand law enforcement that would
help you to be even moresuccessful in in getting these
stolen vehicles back? And by theway, thank you for doing that.
It means all the difference tothe business world and to the
consumer world, the peace ofmind.
Detective Valles (23:20):
Well, I think the most important thing is
networking. Yeah. Just Justsupporting, you know, having the
support from the the community,having the support from the
private sector, and, supportinglaw enforcement itself. I can
tell you on our part, we do,like like I said, mentioned
before, continuous education,our networking ourselves, the
(23:41):
group that I'm part of, I haveconnections. I could call
somebody in New York if I neededa copy of a police report
Sam D'Arc (23:48):
Yeah. Or if I
Detective Valles (23:49):
had a vehicle stolen in Miami or in South
Florida, and it's gonna, I couldhave it recovered, up there, or
if they needed the same thing,they have our contacts on here.
So networking supported eachother, having that open dialogue
with the consumer, the privatesector, and and working
together. At the end of the day,we're trying to make it safer on
(24:10):
the road, on the streets, andalso protecting the the, the
businesses, trying to help theconsumer. So working back and
forth.
Sam D'Arc (24:18):
Yeah. Aaron, what does it mean to you to know that
you've got, police betweenCarrie Ann and detective and
other law enforcement agencieshappening?
Aaron Zeigler (24:26):
Yeah. I was gonna say, you know, detective, thanks
for what you do. Carrie Ann,thanks for what you do. And
really to all the lawenforcement out there,
nationwide, thanks for keepingus safe. Thanks for protecting
our businesses because if youdon't have, protection and you
don't have law and order, youdon't have a a country and you
can't have a business.
So it's it's absolutely crucialwhat these guys do, and there
(24:47):
are the unsung heroes, outthere. And everybody loves a
NASCAR driver, but these are the2 heroes down here. So
Sam D'Arc (24:54):
Well, as we wrap up, everybody, again, thank you for
being here. We'll put in theshow notes if you want more
information on the LoJack lawenforcement, app. You can get
that there. It contacts thedifferent agencies. And then as
we, Carrie, anything you wannaleave as we walk out before I
Karianne Thomas (25:09):
think, Josh, and I just wanna tell Carson,
you know, drive it like youstole it.
Sam D'Arc (25:12):
I was gonna say, we were we are now listen. This
this will be a podcast first.We're gonna give, Carson about a
quarter second head startbecause now after you share the
analytics, we know that. Butgood luck tomorrow. We're all
gonna be there, at the at theracetrack, Rick said, to cheer
you on as potentially you get aa huge finish and you'll lock up
the rookie of the year.
Aaron Zeigler (25:31):
Yep. We won there last year.
Sam D'Arc (25:32):
So Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Detective Valles (25:33):
Yeah. Yeah.
Sam D'Arc (25:33):
Which was pretty cool. So alright. Thanks,
everybody. A special thanks toall who contributed to this
week's podcast. Until next week,how are you driving vision
today?
We actually have been successful recovery of
cars being stolen fromdealerships quicker and from the
consumer.
Sam D'Arc (00:16):
Welcome, everyone, to the driving vision podcast
brought to you by the ZiglerAuto Group. I'm your host, Sam
Dark. Be sure to subscribe tothe podcast. Like it if you do,
and leave a comment. Hey,everybody.
Welcome to the car dealershipguy industry spotlight. I'm your
host, Sam Dark. And today, I'mjoined by president and CEO of
Ziegler Auto Group, AaronZiegler. Melissa High will come
(00:38):
to you in a moment. DetectiveJosh Fallows, Carrie Anne
Thomas, and NASCAR race cardriver, Carson Hocevar, will
come to you in a moment todiscuss the challenges that are
auto theft in America today.
Today's episode is brought toyou by LoJack. Now let's go into
the episode. So Aaron Ziegler,president and CEO of Ziegler
(00:59):
Auto Group. Over 1,000,000vehicles were stolen in 2023
according to the NICB at a costof over $8,000,000,000 to
Americans. How does this impactyour business and, more
importantly, your customers?
Aaron Zeigler (01:13):
Yeah. It's become a huge issue out there, in the
industry and and really in thenation. So we had 72 cars stolen
in 6 months that we did not getback before before we started
using LoJack. That number wentdown to almost nothing after
using LoJack. But it was over$4,000,000 cost to us, and it
was gonna put us out of businessif we we kept going.
(01:34):
So we had to come up withsomething to combat that, and
LoJack has been a, a wonderfulproduct for that.
Sam D'Arc (01:41):
So you have to you have to implement creative
solutions to big problems tofind solutions. How did you how
did you come across this as asolution?
Aaron Zeigler (01:48):
Well, I didn't have the expertise to figure out
how to, to stop the stuffproblem, so I just hired Carrie
Anne. And
Carson Hocevar (01:55):
Yeah.
Aaron Zeigler (01:55):
She was she's the foremost expert in the world.
I'm auto theft. And, she youknow, so it was really her that
came up with with LoJack and theother, processes that we put in
place.
Sam D'Arc (02:05):
So Carrie Ann Thomas, head of security, Ziegler Auto
Group, who was police chief inKalamazoo, Aaron Ziegler came to
you and said, hey. We want youto join the Ziegler Auto Group
and help us out with this. Whatwere your thoughts in that
moment?
Karianne Thomas (02:16):
My thoughts are, you know, I'd like to stay
retired, but I'll try to helpyou out. And his instructions to
me were fix it. And, you know,we jumped right in and looked at
all the solutions because it'slayers of solutions. Right?
Yeah.
But one of the biggest things islot management, knowing where
our cars are all the time. Andin partnering with LoJack, we
are able to do that on a dailybasis, which then, you know,
leads our customers being ableto do the same thing, always
(02:39):
knowing where your car is,making sure you're in possession
and not the bad guys.
Sam D'Arc (02:42):
So Melissa High VP LoJack, it's interesting. Carrie
Anne mentioned Aaron set up theproblem. It is a problem of
theft. Carrie Anne reinforcesit's a problem. What is the
trend line?
Is it getting worse? Is itgetting better?
Melissa High (02:56):
So it's still very strong of a situation. Right?
We're still seeing high theftacross the nation, even into
Canada, even into international.Right? A lot of vehicles stolen
off lots or stolen from theconsumer, right, stolen from our
customers.
So it is a big issue, across thecountry, and that's where we
have really invested into ourlaw enforcement partners,
(03:20):
because they are instrumentalpartners to us serving our
dealers and their customersenrolled in LoJack when it comes
to aiding and recovery. So weinvested into LoJack for law
enforcement which is a datadriven insight technology that
we put all the insights of thosevehicles that are reported
stolen in the palms of the handsof LoJack nationally. It allows
(03:42):
them to cross jurisdictionallycommunicate, tag these vehicles
for safety, see real timemovements, directional insights
of where the vehicle's been, allthe trip history. So it's really
since February of this year, wehave made that investment as a
company, and we're gonnacontinue to further enhance
those features.
Sam D'Arc (04:02):
So before we go into that, because we do wanna talk
about this, this is this is aninteresting feature that you
have that probably few othershave. Before we go there,
detective Alice, you're here inFlorida, and we're gonna talk
about why we're here nearHomestead Raceway in just a
minute, but that that's you.Here's what I don't get. We live
in the most amazing timetechnologically. Technology is
(04:22):
available in every single carthat we as an auto group sell
right now.
The manufacturers can know whereevery car is at every moment. I
don't understand why, given thatfact, if I am driving down the
road, somebody carjacks my car,steals it out of a hotel, I call
the police, why can't you justgo after that car?
Detective Valles (04:41):
So one of one of the main things is the, bad
guys out there, they learn asmuch as the manufacturers where
the tracking systems that themanufacturers place on the
vehicle. Ah. So as soon as theysteal the car, the first thing
that they go to attack is theantenna system, the infotainment
system, defeating the OEM'sfeatures in the vehicle to be
(05:01):
able to steal it and not berecovered. So through one of the
organizations that I'm part of,the International Association of
Auto Theft investigators, Notonly are we not for profit, but
we also educate law enforcementin trying to defeat that. So one
of our partners that, LoJack hasnot only joined us so that we
(05:23):
could grid, bridge that gapbetween law enforcement and the
theft, trying to help theconsumer, trying to help the
dealerships try to recover thecars faster using another tool
that's out there that's weactually have been successful in
recovering cars being stolenfrom dealerships quicker and
from the consumers.
Sam D'Arc (05:40):
So bad guy steals the car, they take it off the lot,
they rip that stuff out. Let'ssay they don't rip the stuff
out. Do you have an easypipeline into communicating with
manufacturers?
Detective Valles (05:50):
So Austin, there is obstacles. You're gonna
call that your 1-eight hundrednumber, and trying to get that
car recovered quicker. If thecar hasn't been entered into,
let's say, the NCIC, theNational Criminal Information
Center, and the car is notactively stolen, there is a gap
between that. Other tools outthere, like LoJack,
automatically, we haverepresentatives available. We're
(06:11):
able to call them, trying totrack that car through now the
law enforcement app, and wecould physically see the car,
try to get them recoveredquicker.
Sam D'Arc (06:19):
Carrie Anne, you've had that problem. You've made
phone calls when vehicles havebeen stolen, and you would think
it'd be easy because everybodyknows where that car is. Let's
say that the the device is leftin the vehicle. It's not always
that easy to get access to.
Karianne Thomas (06:31):
No. And I think, like the detective said,
right, you're calling a 1 800number. Every manufacturer has a
different system they have setup. It there's no uniformity. So
if you have a couple of vehiclesstolen out of your driveway,
right, and they're differentmanufacturers, the response is
going to be totally different.
And the more time that elapses,the less chance of recovery.
Sam D'Arc (06:49):
So who came up with this idea at LoJack to create
this? If I understand it right,what you said, you've got, like,
a a single system, a singledatabase that you're making
available to law enforcementwhere if I'm law enforcement, I
can log in and I can see everyvehicle that's stolen currently
on LoJack, and I can see itacross the country.
Melissa High (07:06):
Right? Yes. So knowing that stolen vehicles are
becoming a major issue, right,for our dealers, it's costly
too. It's extremely costly. Soand then instilling peace of
mind and really being acomplement to the connected car
technology that the OEMs areinstalling at the factory.
Right? Mhmm. So what did we needto do? We needed to develop
(07:27):
something that createdefficiency and speed because as
Kerian and detective Velez said,the faster that law enforcement
has line of sight to the vehiclethat's reported stolen and in
the NCIC database as a validstolen vehicle, the faster they
get that information, the moreprobable it is to recover that
vehicle. So in looking at whatwe needed to do to be to serve
(07:50):
as corporate responsibility,social responsibility, to do our
due diligence for our dealerpartners and then the customers
enrolling in LoJack was okay howdo we take the data that we have
and really get it into the palmsof the hands of law enforcement
as soon as possible and asefficient as possible?
Also
Sam D'Arc (08:10):
In fact, NICB would say if it's reported within 24
hours and there's access totracking on it, so it hasn't
been ripped out, there'scommunication with whoever has
the tracking, the the likelihoodof recovering that grows to 34%.
Aaron, is 34% a good number? No.That's horrible. We're like 98%.
(08:31):
Yeah.
Aaron Zeigler (08:31):
But you when when a car is stolen, you have
minutes, not hours. Yeah. So 24hours, it's gone.
Sam D'Arc (08:37):
It's gone.
Aaron Zeigler (08:37):
That car is already overseas. Like and we've
actually got some cars that wehad tracked that were in
shipping containers, so we gotthem back. Yeah.
Sam D'Arc (08:43):
Because as
Aaron Zeigler (08:44):
soon as they go overseas, they're gone.
Sam D'Arc (08:45):
Yeah. So the 20 the 24 hour metric is ridiculous.
34% success rate, detective. No.It is not.
That's not success. You wouldn'ttake a 34% bit No.
Aaron Zeigler (08:54):
That'll get 34% of any business gets fired or
bankrupt. Right?
Sam D'Arc (08:57):
And a 34% on NASCAR is not good.
Carson Hocevar (09:00):
Yeah. It's not good.
Aaron Zeigler (09:01):
Hey, Sonny.
Carson Hocevar (09:02):
What percentage may be okay, but
Melissa High (09:04):
No. And one thing to that point, Sam, is we spent
about and huge thank you toCarrie Ann, the Ziegler
Organization, as well as theEffective Elijah's unit, as well
as many other units out there,but they've been instrumental,
you all have been instrumentalin getting us in front of the
law enforcement agencies acrossthe country to tell us what we
(09:26):
needed to put in this app,right. We didn't just say, oh,
we're going to design this andput it in the hands of law
enforcement and then realize,oh, we made this investment and
it's not something that'spowerful enough to aid them,
right. So that's where we spentabout a year and a half going
around and actually speakingwith law enforcement agencies,
subject matter experts such asCarrie Ann, Ziegler, you know,
(09:49):
organization, true partners ofours that we can then say okay,
this is what we need to investin and then scale from here. So
since we've launched it inFebruary, it was our soft
launch, we have over 5,000officers and it's growing
rapidly by the day and we'reinvesting the time to say okay,
what else do you need in thisapp?
Because one thing we all knowabout law enforcement, resources
(10:11):
are tight, budgets are tight. Soanything we can do to aid them,
they're instrumental to thesuccess for all of us.
Sam D'Arc (10:18):
Why aren't there more tools like this? Like, there's
nothing crazy proprietary uniqueabout this. It's just that you
did it. Right? You created thistool.
What are the biggest obstaclesto this existing elsewhere,
detective? Like, why doesn'tthis already exist? Like, it's
crazy to me.
Detective Valles (10:32):
It's definitely a growing trend.
Yeah. Things get old. Differenttechniques of how to steal a
car, get older. Yeah.
The same way that they'redeveloping new ideas on how to
protect a vehicle from beingstolen. Yeah. These guys are out
there to defeat. Yeah. The badguys are out there trying to
defeat that.
So you have to keep on evolvingand trying to develop a better
product. Definitely, you know,LoJack is on the right on the
(10:55):
right track, and there's othermanufacturers need to step up
their, game on that side toprevent to be able to prevent
those deaths. Yeah.
Karianne Thomas (11:04):
And, Sam, I just wanna add, like, our law
enforcement officers, they'recrime fighters. They wanna go
find these stolen cars. Right?They wanna solve crimes. That's
in their DNA.
Yeah. And when you give them atool to do that, they're gonna
be looking all the time becausethey have the correct tool.
Right? And there just hasn'tbeen one easy tool that has
allowed them to do that.
Sam D'Arc (11:21):
Yeah. What would you say, detective, to people out
there that see this crime andsay, well, you know what? It's a
police problem. They just don'treally wanna go find the bad
guys. Well,
Detective Valles (11:29):
to express to the consumers out there, on the
law enforcement side, especiallythe the things that I do on a
daily basis, networking is bigon ourselves, not only for the
consumer, but also for theprivate sector. Expressing to
the dealerships what the newtrends are, what to look for to
prevent those thefts. So ifthere's no communication from
(11:50):
both sides, from the consumer,from the victims out there, and
us in law enforcement relatingit through our training, We do
continuous training throughoutthe year trying to give the
those law enforcement officersfrom uniform to investigators
the tools needed to be able tosolve these crimes and prevent
them. Nothing would nothingwould work. So
Sam D'Arc (12:09):
So, Melissa, somebody watching this podcast is part of
law enforcement. They're like,hey. That's a cool idea. I'd
like to figure out how to beable to utilize this service.
What, how do they find out moreinformation?
Where do they get moreinformation about this tool?
Melissa High (12:21):
So we have they could reach out to our LoJack
support number, and there's alink I can have you add to the
podcast. But, basically, they gothrough the process of being
vetted. We do vet all lawenforcement officers just to
make sure they're actively, youknow, affiliated to a government
agency. We make sure the chiefof police or the sergeant of the
(12:42):
unit is aware and we have 3 teammembers in LoJack. They are
LoJack law enforcement liaisons.
So their specialty, they're allformer law enforcement and their
specialty is not only vettingand getting our law enforcement
officers enrolled, but alsoescalations. So they are heavily
involved with subpoenas,warrants, escalated cases that
(13:05):
are under surveillance or theFBI or special task force units
are involved in. That's theirlevel of expertise. Like, that's
where they come into play a biginstrumental role in bridging
that gap even from, let's say,my broader account management
team serving the dealers towhere then it crosses over to
that fine line of, like, okay,we have to fall and on the side
(13:26):
of the law. Right?
So we, by all mean basically,they reach out to our customer
support team. We then bridge itover to our liaisons, and
they're vetted, and then they'reonboarded.
Sam D'Arc (13:37):
So so Aaron gave a couple of really interesting
examples of these vehicles thatwere stolen, got put into
containers. Mhmm. The systemactivated. Law enforcement was
activated. They went and gotthem.
You must have multiple storieslike that on a regular basis.
Like Yeah. Like, is there everone that just shocks you and
you're like, I can't believe werecovered that. Right?
Melissa High (13:56):
So we we had one recent story that actually was
right after the release ofLoJack Elle. The vehicle was
stolen out of Minnetonka andJersey State Police identified
it in the app, saw that thevehicle was coming up, the
turnpike headed into New York,was able to communicate to NYPD
(14:17):
and they recovered it going overthe bridge. I mean, that's how
quick and efficient
Sam D'Arc (14:22):
That's the way it should be.
Melissa High (14:23):
Yes. Totally. Yes.
Sam D'Arc (14:24):
That's my drama too.
Melissa High (14:25):
We've seen, I mean, how many times we see
vehicles stolen in in, like,parking garages Yeah. Where if
you didn't have the tool andhave an understanding of how
LoJack functions or how LoJackLE works and the insights that
are shown there, you wouldthink, oh, I'm never gonna
recover this vehicle, right? Butby us having this technology and
(14:46):
this second layer of protectionand saying okay no this device
is pinging, it's in the hands oflaw enforcement, they'll do
their due diligence and then goaid in the recovery and you know
know how to identify like it'sit's containers, same thing,
once the container starts movingwe're gonna see that. We had one
case, I was working with thedetectives till all hours, it
(15:07):
went on for days and I waspleading please we have to
recover and he would say calmdown, calm down, we're gonna
recover but we needed to cross,we needed to cross over into the
port line because we're gonnapull the container. In that
container was not only ourvehicles recovered
Sam D'Arc (15:22):
for the dealers Others.
Karianne Thomas (15:23):
But a
Melissa High (15:23):
lot of others.
Carson Hocevar (15:24):
Yeah.
Melissa High (15:24):
So we're aiding in also recovery of vehicles that
weren't equipped with low jobs.
Sam D'Arc (15:28):
You're taking back some of that $8,000,000,000 Yes.
Annual loss. I think what'sinteresting is I think, Erin,
when we first heard of the wordLoJack, what did we think of?
Like, there's that LoJack deviceway back from decades ago was
that bar. Right?
Yeah. Exactly. This iscompletely different new
technology.
Aaron Zeigler (15:44):
They use the same name because the brand Yeah.
Name is
Sam D'Arc (15:47):
Oh, by Solar.
Aaron Zeigler (15:47):
Is strong.
Karianne Thomas (15:48):
Yeah.
Aaron Zeigler (15:48):
Yeah. But but Solera, it's Solera's product,
and and, it's worked very well
Sam D'Arc (15:53):
for us. As a company, you've innovated, and you've
come a long way. Aaron oftentalks about how most people make
the mistake of not beingaggressive enough. The auto
group, Sigler Auto Group doesn'tmake that mistake. It's great
that you've evolved a productover time, which brings us the
reason why this guy's here withus today.
So we're here in Florida nearHomestead, the raceway.
Tomorrow, you're going to takethe track here at Homestead,
(16:15):
number 77 Spire, race car. Andtwo names will be on that. The
Ziegler name, which has been onmany, cars this year, and then
LoJack's part of the co primarysponsorship. Two questions for
you.
You've just heard Melissadescribe the law enforcement
app. Could you steal a car givenyour, your your, your driving,
capability
Carson Hocevar (16:36):
Go ahead. Straight
Karianne Thomas (16:37):
out. People is supposed to say you, Kirk?
Carson Hocevar (16:39):
Is it is it low, Jack, or is it you? Well, the
surprise factor is completelygone. Oh, okay. So, Aries got a
car outside.
Sam D'Arc (16:48):
Let's put this thing to a test. I
Aaron Zeigler (16:50):
feel like this
Sam D'Arc (16:51):
should be a YouTube video. The
Carson Hocevar (16:52):
problem well, the problem is the car that I
would wanna steal from the ZingoAuto Group if I was to ever
steal 1 is gonna say 77 on it.It's the Camaro. So it would be
very, very difficult to hidethat in plain sides.
Sam D'Arc (17:05):
Does anyone ever try to steal a NASCAR? I mean,
they're very expensive cars. Imean
Carson Hocevar (17:08):
There's been people not mine or anybody that
I know of, but there's beentimes that people have stolen
race cars, and it's been byaccident.
Sam D'Arc (17:15):
Someone gotten us a pace car once or once. Well,
yeah. Around.
Carson Hocevar (17:18):
Yeah. But they've they've stolen race cars
by accident because they wannasteal the trailer
Sam D'Arc (17:22):
or Yeah.
Carson Hocevar (17:23):
They get down the road. They get wherever
they're going, and then theyopen it to see what they got.
And they realize, oh, there's arace car in here. So there's
been a lot of stories of a racecar just on the side of the road
somewhere, you know, 30, 40miles down the road, because,
you know, that resale value.Number 1, it'd be easy to come
(17:43):
across.
I don't normally find a race caron marketplace. And number 2, it
pretty much says the name andthen exactly who you took it
from. So It's a unique Everytime somebody ever has taken a
race car, it's always byaccident, and they wanna give it
back as soon as possible.
Sam D'Arc (17:58):
So the LoJack app provides detective anything you
have to add
Detective Valles (18:02):
to that. Right? Correct. Not a big marker
provider.
Sam D'Arc (18:04):
Yeah. What would you see if you saw an abandoned
NASCAR on the side of the
Detective Valles (18:07):
road? Somebody picked up, stole the wrong
trailer.
Sam D'Arc (18:10):
Yeah. So, your car and your team provide you a ton
of analytics, some of which aresimilar to what LoJack provides.
LoJack in the app, you havespeed. You can put speed alerts.
You have geofencing.
You can say when a vehicle goesoutside that that geofence. How
important is the data analyticsthat you get to being a NASCAR
driver into winning?
Carson Hocevar (18:30):
Yeah. For us, I mean, it's the it's why
everybody's so good now reallyis, you if somebody, you know,
has a certain technique thatthey've been super good at this
racetrack, it's now no secret.Like, if they're on the throttle
50 feet before you, you can knowthat within them doing, like,
live. It it's live. So, that'swhy qualifying is so important
(18:53):
and everybody's so tied is thesecond you it's why it's such a
disadvantage to go early inqualifying now because the
second you run wide open a 100%throttle, the next 10 guys run
wide open.
Sam D'Arc (19:05):
Yeah.
Carson Hocevar (19:05):
And they instantly know where it used to
be, oh, you know, like, wealways used to drivers hate
analytics because there's adifference between driver wide
open and analytic wide open.That not that 98% that we'd lift
2% instantly, our engineers aresaying, we didn't run wide open.
You didn't run a 100%, where 10,15 years ago, they were able to
(19:25):
get away with that. Yeah. It waswide open.
Yeah. That was easy. Oh, yeah.So Yeah. For us and me, like,
being super new and everythingthat it's I mean, you could see
my steering trace.
You could see the GPS. They haveGPSs, and they show exactly
where we are. We can compareeverybody in the field's,
throttle, brake, lateral g. Imean, just I think if I sneezed
(19:48):
in there, you'd probably knowit. But for us, I mean, it's
super crucial and important.
And for us as a team growing,it's even more important for us
because we can look at thebetter cars, and they can know
what adjustments to make. Theycan develop year to year from,
you know, when we come back inthe spring. They could compare
(20:08):
our car to, you know, the bestcars here, but we can actually
download their data, go to thesimulator, upload their driving
characteristics to the sim. Wecould and then when I'm in the
simulator, it will show acomparison, like, I'm on the
racetrack, like, it would, youknow, my lap compared to Kyle
(20:28):
Larson's lap or whoever that itwould have the lap to lap. Well,
now I'm doing it in thesimulator, and now I can see his
throttle trace.
I can see his Wow. Steering. Icould see everything. And when I
first started driving cup carsin the simulator, I drove a cup
car in the sim for a year inadvance before ever driving 1 in
real life. And my job wasliterally just to match the
(20:51):
drivers.
Like, it wasn't to make the carbetter, it was to match the cup
drivers. So then my feedback inthe sim was the same as theirs
on the racetrack. So, I mean,for a year, they just taught me
how to How to drive. How tomatch a cup driver. So
Sam D'Arc (21:05):
So those data, those analytics delivered to you
quickly, timely so you can learnfrom them, have put you in a
spot as we near the end of thisyear where you're on the verge
of winning a pretty coolaccolade. You mentioned yourself
being a brand new driver. Tellus about rookie of the year and
how close you are to to closingthat out.
Carson Hocevar (21:22):
Yeah. So Go jinx yourself, though. Well, I mean,
it'd be really an play on Aaron.Well, for us to lose it right
now, it'd be really difficult.Oh, don't say that.
Well, we have 99 point leadright now. As long as we get 18
points more than the 4, we lockup. Oh, yeah. But even too as he
would have to basically win bothstages and win the race in the
(21:44):
next 2 but you'd have to winhe'd have to max out, and we'd
have to, like, max fail,basically, To, you know, we'd
have to have both ends of thespectrum for the next 2 races.
But, yeah, every all signs pointto to being pretty good.
But one thing that I justthought of about the data and
everything is Jeff Dickerson,our owner at Spire, he laughed,
(22:06):
saying if he had a a dataanalytic or you anything, he'd
probably be a race car driverinstead of a owner because he
laughed. He said he saw one one,you know, dirt spring car,
whatever, and they finally putdata on the thing. And, you
know, 2 or 3 years ago, he'slooking at all this data because
it was so new, and it's it'spretty new technology we have.
(22:27):
And he just looked. He goes,that right there is why I did
not make it as a race cartracker.
He's like, I was one one look atSMT comparing myself to just
realize, man, I was doing thatall wrong.
Sam D'Arc (22:39):
Yeah. You know what's so interesting is you talk about
that and and, again, theimportance of data, analytics,
going back to this, going backto the business, Aaron's
business, like, having thatinformation is so crucial to
being successful in business, tolistening to it, to getting it,
quickly. So, detective, whatwhat has it meant to you in your
battle as we wrap up here tofight crime, to stop crime, to
(23:01):
stop vehicle theft, to have someof these different tools? And is
there anything else you need,that the public, that the
business world could give youand law enforcement that would
help you to be even moresuccessful in in getting these
stolen vehicles back? And by theway, thank you for doing that.
It means all the difference tothe business world and to the
consumer world, the peace ofmind.
Detective Valles (23:20):
Well, I think the most important thing is
networking. Yeah. Just Justsupporting, you know, having the
support from the the community,having the support from the
private sector, and, supportinglaw enforcement itself. I can
tell you on our part, we do,like like I said, mentioned
before, continuous education,our networking ourselves, the
(23:41):
group that I'm part of, I haveconnections. I could call
somebody in New York if I neededa copy of a police report
Sam D'Arc (23:48):
Yeah. Or if I
Detective Valles (23:49):
had a vehicle stolen in Miami or in South
Florida, and it's gonna, I couldhave it recovered, up there, or
if they needed the same thing,they have our contacts on here.
So networking supported eachother, having that open dialogue
with the consumer, the privatesector, and and working
together. At the end of the day,we're trying to make it safer on
(24:10):
the road, on the streets, andalso protecting the the, the
businesses, trying to help theconsumer. So working back and
forth.
Sam D'Arc (24:18):
Yeah. Aaron, what does it mean to you to know that
you've got, police betweenCarrie Ann and detective and
other law enforcement agencieshappening?
Aaron Zeigler (24:26):
Yeah. I was gonna say, you know, detective, thanks
for what you do. Carrie Ann,thanks for what you do. And
really to all the lawenforcement out there,
nationwide, thanks for keepingus safe. Thanks for protecting
our businesses because if youdon't have, protection and you
don't have law and order, youdon't have a a country and you
can't have a business.
So it's it's absolutely crucialwhat these guys do, and there
(24:47):
are the unsung heroes, outthere. And everybody loves a
NASCAR driver, but these are the2 heroes down here. So
Sam D'Arc (24:54):
Well, as we wrap up, everybody, again, thank you for
being here. We'll put in theshow notes if you want more
information on the LoJack lawenforcement, app. You can get
that there. It contacts thedifferent agencies. And then as
we, Carrie, anything you wannaleave as we walk out before I
Karianne Thomas (25:09):
think, Josh, and I just wanna tell Carson,
you know, drive it like youstole it.
Sam D'Arc (25:12):
I was gonna say, we were we are now listen. This
this will be a podcast first.We're gonna give, Carson about a
quarter second head startbecause now after you share the
analytics, we know that. Butgood luck tomorrow. We're all
gonna be there, at the at theracetrack, Rick said, to cheer
you on as potentially you get aa huge finish and you'll lock up
the rookie of the year.
Aaron Zeigler (25:31):
Yep. We won there last year.
Sam D'Arc (25:32):
So Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Detective Valles (25:33):
Yeah. Yeah.
Sam D'Arc (25:33):
Which was pretty cool. So alright. Thanks,
everybody. A special thanks toall who contributed to this
week's podcast. Until next week,how are you driving vision
today?
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