The advice they give is so stupid but sadly necessary…
Apparently, there are still people out there who don’t know car theft is surging all over, including in Virginia. That’s spurred numerous law enforcement agencies in the state to jointly launch a public awareness campaign called Love My Car. We fully admit our first reaction was this is just some cheesy bureaucratic feel-good campaign which will do absolutely nothing to curb car theft, but after taking a closer look at it we think it might actually help, and that’s sad.
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One of the big pushes of this campaign is to get people to not leave their keys in the car and especially to not leave their car running while they’re not in it. That likely sounds completely idiotic to you and congratulations, you’re smarter than a significant chunk of the population. Since we monitor car thefts all over the nation and in other countries, we can tell you with keyless ignitions becoming more common, more people just leave their keys in the car or leave it running while they run up to someone’s door or whatever.
“I would say 99 percent of our stolen cars have a key involved somehow; either the owner left the car running and unattended or they left a spare key inside the car somewhere,” said Major Rick Edwards of the Richmond Police Department to local journalists.
That’s how much of a problem this idiotic habit has become. You might as well just put a sign on your car inviting thieves to take it, because you’re practically handing it to them. We seriously wonder if most insurance companies would even consider a situation like that theft or decide you just gifted the vehicle to stranger.
The other portion of this campaign counsels people to not leave valuables in their parked car, especially where they’re visible. Again, that’s such a common sense rule that of course there are too many people who don’t follow it. So is the final item: parking in well-lit areas if you can’t park someone secure. We’d ask why this needs to be said at all, but sadly we already know.
You probably don’t do any of these things, but if you know someone who does, just send this article to them. Then break out the box of crayons and some construction paper to help them understand why they shouldn’t just leave their keys in their car.
Source: NBC 12
