Safe Speed Forums

You absolutely could not make this up.

In ‘the old days’ it was a relatively risky business; stealing from parked cars.

The thief had to walk down a particular street and try the door handles of every car until he got lucky, or alternatively, glance into each vehicle until he saw something of value to steal. This was the hard part because you stick out when you are trying door handles or staring into the back of every vehicle in a street.

So now to Ruralshire in 2009. We have decided to make the hard part easy. We do this by sending Neighbourhood Police Officers and PCSO’s to areas of high vehicle crime and asking them to walk down the street identifying the vulnerable vehicles. When they have done this, they attach a yellow sticker to the windscreen informing the owner (when they return) that there is some kind of insecurity. We even tick a box telling the owner how the vehicle is insecure.

This marks out the vulnerable cars for thieves and helpfully informs them how to proceed without any of that pesky ‘having to furtively look this way and that’ which used to mark them out as suspicious.

This is quite the maddest scheme in British Policing, and I guess if nothing else, we should congratulate the inventors for that; let’s face it, there is a lot of competition.

Gadget Note: Next, we plan to simply come into your house, take your things, drive down to The Swamp and give them to Kylie and Wayne.

Displayed property campaigns

Displayed property campaigns highlight to the owner that
they have left goods on display in their car. This can be
achieved either by noting the vehicle registration number
and subsequently writing to the registered keeper, or by
placing a sticker on the windscreen of those who have left
property on display. One concern in relation to the latter
approach is that it identifies suitable theft targets for
potential offenders. One solution to this is to place a sticker
on all windscreens in an area, which look identical when
read from the outside, but which have different messages
(either raising awareness of items left on display, or a ‘well
done’ for leaving nothing on display) when read from
inside the vehicle. Another option might be to place the car
crime prevention advice within a Fixed Penalty Notice
envelope. It should be noted that both approaches can
create a negative reaction from a small number of
motorists (e.g. about it being an infringement of civil
liberties or waste of police time) and a method of dealing
with these in advance should be considered.