Lock up your motors
My neighbour Bob had his car broken into this morning. He said he heard noises outside and went out to find a bloke smashing up the steering wheel and console, apparently trying to hotwire it.
When the bloke realised Bob was out there he shouted “I’m coming out mate, I’m coming out!” He did so, pushed past Bob and ran down the street. Sounds like the bloke wanted to avoid a physical confrontation.
Bob says he inadvertently left his car unlocked overnight, and suspects the bloke was just an opportunist. He also thinks he may have been affected in some way by drugs, alcohol, or something else.
I’d have to assume a pro could have hotwired a car in seconds, and not made enough noise to rouse people. Bob’s got an older Commodore — perhaps it doesn’t have an immobiliser, though it’s unclear if the bloke would have known that.
The police CSI team came and took fingerprints, but one would guess they won’t have much luck finding anybody… more likely they might pin that on him if they find him for something else.
I thought nobody would try and break into a car in a driveway, because the assumption would be that somebody’s home. The Lady Cop said you can never assume your car in your driveway is safe. Some people will notice an unlocked car and grab gold coins from the coin tray — you wouldn’t even know anything had happened.
Bob’s okay… he was just a little shaken. But his car will need some repairs.
It reminds me that although Bentleigh is a pretty safe, low-crime suburb, it’s good to take care. I sometimes leave my car open, windows down, doors unlocked if it’s a hot day and I’m expecting to go driving somewhere. The lesson I’ll take from this is to at least ensure the doors are deadlocked (which should also activate the immobiliser, hopefully preventing hotwiring) whenever the car is unattended.
- Interesting paper on the effectiveness of different types of car immobilisers — the basic conclusion seems to be that immobilisers effectively cut opportunistic theft, but are less effective in cutting professional theft
Why yes, my neighbours are Magpies supporters
Why yes, my neighbours are Magpies supporters.
Footy’s back. I got 7/8 for round 1… hopefully I can keep it up and win back the ugly trophy.
Loud
Top CDs/songs to play really loudly when you realise you no longer have neighbours to annoy, and even if you did annoy someone you can’t be evicted because you’re moving next week anyway:
- Hoodoo Gurus: 1000 Miles Away
- Paul Kelly: Deeper Water
- the Edge Of Darkness soundtrack
- Most of Who’s Next, obviously
- and Led Zeppelin 4
- U2: Achtung Baby
- Professor Ratbaggy
- Spiderbait: Run
- Sky: Toccata
Top DVDs to watch really loudly:
- Fellowship of the Ring
- Ocean Colour Scene: Filmed from the front row
- Matrix
- Gladiator
- Maybe a Star Trek or two
- Baraka might be quite good… damn, I really need to get surround sound
Though not too loudly of course, since I have come to realise that my "hi-fi" is really "lo-to-medium-fi". O alas, the distortion!
What else?
