Comment by cucumber3732842

It's pretty hard (probably nigh on impossible in the urban greater DC area) to make it out of your driveway/street without pressing the brake pedal enough to know you have an at least somewhat functional system.

The airbag system mods are pretty standard shitbox stuff. System goes off for whatever reason. Car is repaired. Sensors get tricked/fudged along the way because the owner doesn't want to put the money in (probably not worth it). Newer systems are more in depth and obnoxious to deal with so reading between the lines this is an older car which kinda also explains the brake thing.

Not that the government wouldn't do this but come on, they're not stealing your car to disassemble the front clip and monkey with the crash sensors and your brakes, they'll do something better than that.