I don’t know if this is the stupidest solution to theft ever, but it has to rank up there
Apparently, people in San Francisco and Oakland thought the best way to prevent smashed windows is to left thieves right on through.
Car theft sucks regardless. Maybe if your shit was going to get stolen anyway, there’s no reason why to have to add cleaning up a smashed window in the process and putting it on the insurance bill. But leaving your car unlocked is still a pretty stupid way to go about it.
Take this admittedly ancient Bloomberg CityLab article about the merits and demerits of locking your car — yes, people debated this. The rationale is what I explained above — if people are going to break in, they’re going to do it anyway, so why make it a hassle for either party, especially yourself?
A few problems:
— it’s a bad mental habit. It’s just giving up, before you even start really. While that in of itself is bad on its own, it also leads to a mindset that ends up lapsing on security. The kind of thing that leads to nation-crippling terrorist attacks, nation-crippling pandemics and electing a literal criminal from a party that has allowed both to happen on its watch.
— It allows easy access for thieves to your stuff. This is the most obvious one. Some security is always better than none at all.
— It allows easy access for thieves to a greater amount of stuff than you realize. Like, for example, your entire goddamn car. Or valuable personal information that could lead to bank accounts or, at the very least, your physical address for the potential of even more thieving.
So that said, what should you do to better secure your car?
— For starters, lock it. This should go without saying.
— Take valuable things with you, as the Bloomberg CityLab points out. It doesn’t strictly make you foolproof from thieves — you could become the victim of a mugging, after all — but it gives you a literal fighting chance at least.
— Certain things like say a laptop is awkward to take around absolutely everywhere, but you can at least hide it from view. Under the seat is always a viable option, and most SUVs have hidden storage space aplenty that thieves are rarely going to be keen on in case they do successfully make it inside.
— Perhaps the most advantageous, as the Bloomberg CityLab article points out, is to make sure your car has an alarm system, whether you install one or the one the car left the factory with is in working order. Ideally, a firm, but not shattering, tap on the glass should be enough to set it off.
To those who scoff at the idea of car alarms and argue they’re worthless — they go off so often everyone ignores them after all — take a few things to consider first. Car alarms still draw attention — they are after all annoying by design, and even a microsecond of attention before being dismissed is enough to catch a would-be car burglar. And thieves are humans too — yes, they have feelings and mothers, but they’re also prone to being startled and being run off as anyone else. A novice thief especially (which is most of them — the vast majority of theft crime is of opportunity, after all) is going to be much more likely to panic and abort, and even a confident experienced one will think twice unless they just happen to have that much bravado. Such a criminal is exceedingly rare as their bravado only goes as far as opportunity allows them.
And that’s the takeaway — opportunity. Totally denying opportunity may be impossible but a little inconvenience goes a long way.
