Why do so many people cheat online?

hmh, to me those symptoms sounds like lag ,server , net connection issues ? I've experienced same thing 2 or 3 times , but no big deal :D 

must be annoying if happens all the time ? 

I wouldnt bother complaining to EA they dont care your not a hacker or cheat so you have nothing to offer them in exchange for learning them how to program better,  just leave the hackers to play thats what EA are doing, 

very soon I will stop buying games that go on-line and just play off-line, or I might just not bother buying games from a shabby gaming computer companys that dont care about decent players, and  that only care's about the £ $ money, if all the decent players stop buying EA games and criterion they would lose 75% of all sale's, yet with that threat of losing 75% they love hackers and cheats more because they teach them things and decent players dont, 

bit like a lottery you have to be in it to win it,  NEW SLOGUN FOR EA!!   

NO EDUCATE OUR ENGINEERS   NO CARE ABOUT YOU OR YOUR FAMILY,  

NO CUSTOMER SUPPORT FOR NONE HACKERS  NONE CHEATERS!,

you have to cheat and hack to get respect, how crap is that, 

Better question would be, why doesn't Criterion have a cheat prevention system in place.

I play a lot online and actually have not seen anyone deliberately cheating.

What you are describing is all about client-host lag and nothing to do with cheating. The game itself is buggy like hell and that's the main reason you see people flipping out on your screen.

What I would prefer is that people get kicked out of the session if the client-host connection is so bad that this happens. Because even though they are "teleporting" they still drive like **bleep** most of the time, and I can still get takedowns on them.

Do I hear Punkbuster? lol

I do not think it's cheating, I think it is just a problem with the internet (lag) and the game's issues.

When I play online, sometimes, I would just drive past someone's car, without even touching them, then it says I took them down.

Well I don't think lag will let your car left up one story high when I try to take you down and let you aim and boost like a rocket to take me down.

How could a BAC mono take down a Pagani At top speed?

How could a car jump 600 yards on the parking lot?

All I can hear is CHEATING,

LMAO, The game crashes, freezes, reboots itself, and erases all your offline data too!

No people do cheat, 100%. I have seen people crash, respawn & boost back up to 200+ mph and fly past me, have seen people jump into the air everything time someone try to ram them, i myself kept trying to ram this cheater in frustration at meet up and everytime i get close he used a hack to jump stright up to avoid it. I have seen a no crash hack where people just keep driving after hitting traffic.. so stop being naive, there are lots of hackers. Type it in google any idiot kid can get hold of them... its the 21st century and they make an online game with no anti-cheat? I stopped playing last night because a kid was clearly cheating.