Won't Someone Please Think of the Children?

Sorry, I couldn't resist the above title for this post after listening to the House debate on Senate Bill 62 last week. Every year, literally dozens of bills are introduced to "crack down" on sex offenders, setting new limits on where they can live and work. So it really shouldn't be a surprise that when a bill came up this session to ban convicted sex offenders from driving ice cream trucks, the vast majority of lawmakers were happy to jump on board the proposal. The idea seems reasonable enough to me, although I can't remember the last time I saw an ice cream truck.

The thing is, the measure goes a lot farther than that. They wouldn't even be able to drive one of those lunch trucks you see parked outside the Cook County Courthouse at 26th and California, all over downtown Chicago, or at most any construction site in the state. The bill would also make it illegal for convicted sex offenders to drive fire trucks, ambulances and other emergency vehicles. Was there some epidemic of sex offenders impersonating fire fighters and stealing fire trucks that I wasn't aware of?

The Reverse PIN Myth

I'm sure you've heard the urban legend before: If you're getting held up while you're at the ATM, enter your PIN code in reverse and the machine will secretly alert the police. You'll still get the money so the robber won't hurt you and the cops will soon be on their way. Joe Zingher of Gurnee wants to make the myth reality.

In 1998, he patented software that would allow you to do just what I described, but so far, banks aren't buying. So he's been trying to convince Illinois lawmakers to make it mandatory. But all they've been willing to do is pass a law a few years ago that gives banks the option of installing the software, which they haven't done. His basic argument is that if a criminal knows every ATM has the emergency PIN technology installed, he or she will be less likely to put a gun to someone's head to force them to withdraw a couple hundred dollars if there's a good chance the cops would be on their way within minutes.

A couple quick questions came to my mind when I heard about this. Like, what if your PIN code is 2442? Or 4444? Zingher came up with a workaround for both of those: the inside-out emergency PIN and the plus-one emergency PIN. If your code is 2442, you turn it inside-out and your emergency PIN is 4224. If your code is 4444, you add one to each digit and your emergency PIN is 5555.

But the banking industry argues most people wouldn't be able to remember their emergency PIN even if it's just the reverse of their normal PIN code. They say many people have a hard time remembering their normal PIN code. I know I've been guilty of that before, since I have different PIN codes for my ATM card and several other accounts online.

Then there's the question of cost. Ten years ago, the Illinois Office of Banks and Real Estate conducted a study that said it would cost $1,500 per ATM to install the emergency PIN system. Zingher claims that's false. He says it would cost only $25 per ATM. Even if he's right, something tells me there's more to this story that I haven't heard yet. If it's that inexpensive, I doubt he'd have that much trouble convincing any banks to buy his software.