A Multiple Victim Of Car Crime

I don’t know if I was just unlucky but a few years ago I suffered several incidents of car crime which cost me a fortune and taught me that it doesn’t matter where you park you can become a victim even if that parking space is at your own home!

The first Incident

I had attended a football match at Arsenal and returned to my vehicle to find the hazard lights flashing and total devastation. Some kind individual had smashed both front windows, put a crow bar to my dashboard and stolen my rather smart radio. Lesson number one learnt. Do not fit smart radios in your car, you are better off with an integral unit, the thieves are not interested in those. This episode saw £2500 worth of damage to my car to steal a radio that they probably sold for no more than £25.

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Another Radio

After the damage to my car was repaired and the radio replaced (stupid move) I had a couple of hassle free weeks before an ill-fated trip to a local shopping centre. In this particular mall the shops are connected to the car park by a walkway and now being paranoid about the car I parked it close to this walkway to ensure that people were constantly passing by. Unfortunately my efforts were to no avail as I returned to the car park to find my car had been broken into again and another radio stolen. My insurance company were not amused and paid for an allegedly theft-proof model which self-destructed if disconnected without the appropriate code being entered.

Further Incidents

The new radio did indeed prevent any further thefts but did not stop someone covering my car in tomato ketchup when it was parked in front of my house. I have no idea what the purpose of this action was but it caused damage to the paintwork and yet more expenditure. This was followed by the most stupid episode of all which happened when I took a short break in Staffordshire to visit Alton Towers. On arriving at my hotel I parked my car near the entrance and adjacent to some garage doors in the hope that there would be regular passers-by.

I awoke the next morning and walked down to breakfast to be greeted by a receptionist who looked very troubled. She called me over and explained that the previous night some youths had been thrown out of the hotel bar for being rather drunk. They had taken exception to being kicked out and decided to put a baseball bat through the windows of a couple of cars in the car park. Inevitably mine was one of them. The man from Autoglass was rapidly becoming a close friend!

Conclusions

It doesn’t matter where you park your car or how careful you are, there is still a chance that you will become a victim of car crime. New cars have improved security and integral radios and so getting broken into is less common these days but you could still be a victim of tomato ketchup or a baseball bat!

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Sally Stacey

About the Author:

Sally Stacey is a keen blogger who has had a few incidents with her car! She is currently writing on behalf of UK Window Systems. Check her out on Google+ now!