OffStar

A woman has a Cadillac vehicle with GM’s OnStar system that provides emergency and roadside assistance with the push of a button inside the car, no cell phone needed. Unfortunately, she didn't subscribe to OnStar. Lately, she accidentally locked her purse and keys in the car. And her infant daughter. She managed to contact OnStar and asked them to help, just this once, because there was a baby in the car. They refused. It was a pure accident. She set the purse down in the car and closed the back door, when all four doors locked spontaneously.

[Update: since a commenter called me out for not telling the whole story, I link to the original here.]

I have a problem when car companies nickel and dime you to have to subscribe to a service in order to use a feature built-in to your car. If GM wanted to maintain great customer relationships, they should offer OnStar as a value-added bonus. For free. If they can't afford to do that, it should be built into the price of the vehicle. It makes no sense to have a safety feature that you can only use if you pay extra for it.

Imagine if your air bags only worked if you paid a yearly subscription fee......