Stolen-vehicle chases may make for gripping reality TV, but statistics show that such pursuits are fantastically dangerous, often culminating in crashes that damage or even destroy the very cars and trucks they’re intended to recover. What if there were better way to recover a filched auto, one that could be orchestrated from afar, with minimal risk to person and property?

Thanks to GM’s Stolen Vehicle Slowdown technology, such low-risk stops will soon be reality. Starting in the ’09 model year, the company will begin rolling out the new feature, which allows vehicles equipped with the OnStar system to be remotely disabled in the event of a theft. Availability will be limited at first but is expected to spread to all OnStar-equipped cars and trucks within a few years. (Somewhat surprisingly, the Corvette will not be among the first group of vehicles to receive the required hardware upgrades.)

Here’s how it works: Once the car owner has notified police of the theft, a law-enforcement official contacts OnStar and requests a slowdown. An OnStar rep then sends the vehicle’s PCM a signal severely limiting the travel of the electronic throttle, instantly cutting top speed to 3-5 mph. The idea is to simulate an actual powertrain failure so the crooks have no idea they’re about to be collared. The slowdown even includes an illuminated “service engine” light to support the illusion.

Ideally, an officer will ID the vehicle ahead of time (aided, if necessary, by a few remotely triggered flashes from the hazard lights), discreetly wait for the slowdown to take effect, and nab the clueless perps when they abandon the ostensibly malfunctioning car. A dangerous chase is averted, the owner gets his ride back, and the crooks get to model the latest in neon-orange eveningwear.

It all sounds great in theory, but there’s still something faintly unsettling about the idea of owning a vehicle whose critical engine and electronic functions can be hacked into and manipulated by someone in another time zone. After all, what’s to stop, say, a spiteful divorcé from reporting a vehicle stolen just to strand his ex out in the middle of Deliveranceville?

When I asked about the potential for abuse with the system, OnStar Public Policy Manager George H. Baker assured me that slowdowns would only be executed when requested by law enforcement on behalf of the vehicle’s owner. If that’s not assurance enough, it will even be possible to have one’s car taken “off the grid,” so to speak, by reprogramming the PCM to remove the slowdown feature altogether. (The programming can be reversed later on for a fee.)

Those twin guarantees should be sufficient to assuage all but the most ardent civil libertarians, leaving reality-TV execs as the only group to claim a legitimate beef with the slowdown technology. After all, with a little luck, it won’t be long before all those spectacular high-speed car chases are relegated to the realm of reruns.