Insurers attribute the improvement to the fact that most new cars are now fitted with immobiliser systems which prevent the engines being started without a matchingkey signal.
One provision could be overtly harmful to many middle-income earners: a redefinition in the "top-heavy" rule that says that when 60% of a company's retirement plan contributions are in the accounts of key employees, the company must make matching contributions of 3% to all workers with three years employment.
The key to the 1996 reforms was that the block grants to each state were finite, not matching, so the federal funding did not vary with the amount the state spent.