On May 13, in South Carolina, the AP reports that a prison inmate, out for a hospital visit, attempted to escape by trying a GTA-style driver-yank-and-carjack on a nearby car. Things didn’t work out so well for 18-year old Ezekiel Stevenson, the wannabe carjacker, because the driver of the car had a tiny advantage: the key fob. 
 
 I have a sort of love/hate relationship with proximity keys. Well, mostly hate, if I’m honest. Sure, they can be convenient, but all too often they manage to cause complicated issues and hassles that could so easily be resolved if the damn car just demanded to have a key jammed in it somewhere. 
 
 This time, though, I have to admit a clear and unfettered victory for the proximity key. See, when Stevenson dragged that unnamed guy out of his car, he had the key fob on him, so when the prison inmate tried to drive away, the car’s owner was able to shut down the car. 
 
 With the car immobile, a standoff ensued, with Stevenson attempting to lock the doors, but the owner just kept clicking the button on the fob and unlocking them, over and over, until police were able to enter the car. 
 
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 Stevenson bolted into the woods, but was caught within the hour. If the car had used a conventional key, this all would have played out very differently. 
 
 Looks like I owe proximity keys a bit of an apology. 
 
 ... ||||| Don’t mess with mom. At least not this 21-year-old mother of two who while pumping gas Monday thwarted a carjacking by throwing an armed robber out of her vehicle with her bare hands, then calmly adjusting her shirt as he ran off. Her two young children were in the back seat. 
 
 It all happened at a Tom Thumb gas station in Hialeah, Fla., where the mom had stopped to fill up her red convertible. As she was managing the gas pump, two would-be robbers who appeared to have guns ran toward her car and an SUV at a nearby tank. At first, the assailants attempted to jump into the SUV, but the driver was able to shut herself inside. 
 
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 The carjackers then focused their attention on the red convertible, one of them attempting to enter through the passenger-side door and the other successfully plunking himself down in the driver’s seat. In the video above, the mom can be seen racing around the car, reaching in the driver’s-side door, grabbing a carjacker, and hurling him away from her car and her children. 
 
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 “She’s able to drag him out of the car while the other one on the other side runs away like a coward,” Sgt. Carl Zogby of the Hialeah Police Department told WPLG News. “Little did they know this was a mom, and she wasn’t going to let that car be taken.” 
 
 Although the criminals raced away from the gas station, the local police quickly tracked them down, according to WPLG. Arrested were Juan Carlos Gonzalez, 17; Nicholas Rosado, 19; and the driver of their getaway car, Rebecca Utria, 21. They face charges of attempted armed carjacking and eluding police. 
 
 Although police generally advise complying with robbers rather than fighting back, it seems hell hath no fury like an angry mother defending her children. In November, a Houston mom was able to chase down a speeding carjacker who stole a truck with her children inside. After he stopped to let the kids out, the mother collected them, then chased the driver into a ditch. 
 
 In 2012, Texas mom Dorothy Baker got slashed by a knife while grappling with a carjacker who hid in her car while she and her two children shopped. She managed to call 911 and crash her car into a telephone pole, hoping to eject the assailant, who wasn’t wearing a seat belt. When he attempted to exit the car and flee, she used her car to stop him. “I didn’t mean to run him over,” she told ABC News. “I was just trying to stop him so he didn’t hurt anybody else.” 
 
 That same year, a quick-thinking New Jersey mom driving with her two children, ages 8 and 16, speedily locked the doors when an armed assailant grabbed her door handle and attempted to yank it open, as they were stopped at a traffic light. When he banged on the window with his gun and fired two shots into the ground, she stomped on the gas and sped away. The gunman was soon apprehended. 
 
 Please follow @YahooParenting on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest. Have an interesting story to share about your family? Email us at YParenting (at) Yahoo.com. ||||| Lawyers have filed a class action lawsuit against most major automakers over what attorneys call a deadly "defect" in keyless ignition systems. 
 
 Keyless ignition systems, available on many new cars sold in the United States today, allow drivers to start the car with the press of a button while an electronic "key fob" remains in their pocket or purse. The car will not start if the key fob is not detected inside the vehicle. 
 
 The "defect" alleged in the lawsuit is that, once the car has been started, these systems allow to it continue running even after the fob itself is no longer in the car. The lawsuit cited cases in which drivers have inadvertently left their vehicles running inside enclosed garages causing a build-up of toxic odorless carbon monoxide gas that has seeped into homes, including at least one case involving a Toyota Prius hybrid. 
 
 There have been 13 deaths in these sorts of incidents, according to the lawsuit, and many more injuries. This is especially likely in cars that have very quiet, smooth-running engines. 
 
 For example, in gasoline-electric hybrid cars, the engine may not be running at all when the driver first gets out of the vehicle. The engine could come on later, though, after power in the vehicles' batteries runs low. 
 
 General Motors (GM) recently recalled older models of the Chevrolet Volt plug-in hybrid to add software that would fix this very issue. Newer Volts have software that will shut the car off after a few minutes if the key fob leaves the vehicle. 
 
 Many vehicles make a sound, such as a horn beep to alert drivers if they leave their vehicle while it's running. 
 
 Many automakers have also added an "auto-off" feature to their newer cars and trucks, according to the lawsuilt but have not gone back to older vehicles already on the road and added the software. 
 
 Among the automakers being sued are General Motors, Fiat Chrysler (FCAM), Toyota (TM), Honda (HMC) and others. Most automakers contacted by CNNMoney about this lawsuit have either not yet responded or have declined to respond because they have not seen the lawsuit. 
 
 Ford Motor Co. said, in a statement, "Ford takes the safety of our customers very seriously; the keyless ignition system has proven to be a safe and reliable innovative feature that has been well-received by customers. Ford vehicles equipped with keyless ignition alert drivers when the driver's door is open and the vehicle's engine is running."
– Authorities say a quick-thinking driver thwarted a car-jacking by a jail inmate in South Carolina, reports the AP. Arrest warrants say Ezekiel Stevenson yanked a driver from his car during a hospital visit on May 13. But the driver kept his key fob, shutting the engine down before the car could leave the lot. (This is thanks to a "proximity key," explains Jalopnik.) That led to a standoff with the 18-year-old inmate, who kept trying to lock the doors. Each time, the driver used the fob to unlock them for officers. Stephenson then managed to flee into the woods, dodging an officer's gunshot (no details are provided about why the officer opened fire), but he was found within the hour. He had been in the Darlington County Jail on a hit-and-run charge. Now he's back there facing escape, carjacking, and resisting arrest charges. His lawyer did not respond to a request for comment.