Be careful where you leave your car!

[Beefy84]

Evening all. Hope I'm posting this in the right place, sorry for it being a bit of a long story. Intended as nothing more than awareness and a heads up for you all.

After work on NYE I drove into London to meet my brothers and our better halves to see in the new year. Knowing I would not likely arrive until about 2300 and how busy it may be I thought I would be half organised for a change and pre book my parking the night before. Went online and found the closest car park to be on Grosvenor Hill in Mayfair and booked 3 hours (£34!!!!!) Arrive at approx 2245 on NYE to a very quiet car park with not a soul to be seen. As I reverse into a space I look at the car next to me a couple of spaces along, a very nice 911, and notice the passenger window to be well and truly smashed in (great start to the new year for some poor person). Decide it may be best to move and on my way back through the car park I pass a Merc S600 which has suffered the same fate! I'm in two minds as to what to do with time not on my side and not knowing the area and where else I can go to park. I decide it's unlikely whoever did this will be returning tonight, so I park up right by the exit barrier in view of some houses and reluctantly head off. Walking to my destination I see a police van and inform the officer of what I've come across. His response... "oh yeh it happens in that car park all the time, I'd move yours if I were you" ...brilliant! Decide it might be better not to return to those extremely quiet backstreets which surround the car park on my own, so get one of my brothers to join me and we find a road to park up on instead. They were two very unlucky cars/people out of an impressive selection including a Rolls, a Ferrari, and a GTR. Just shows these things can happen anywhere to anyone so be aware of where you leave your pride and joy. It certainly made me think.

 

[SimonRJ]

Makes you so angry when you work hard to have nice things and look after your pride and joy and some numpty comes along and wrecks it!

 

[Satch]

A number of central London & City car parks which offer "secure" parking frequently have no human beings on duty at all.

If you press the "help" button end up talking to somebody in a control centre who can send a roving security & assistance unit out which serves a number of car parks.

Since the CCTV is limited, sometimes only actively monitoring the entrance & exit gates with a few static cameras dotted around, they become a playground for scum.

 

[brucemillar]

Having had my car broken into in a Bristol Multi Storey the Police advised:

Never park near an exit or entrance. This includes the stairwells. Apparently your car thief likes an unobstructed getaway so the nearer their point of exit the better for them.

Mine was parked next to the stairwell exit.

 

[Beefy84]

Makes you so angry when you work hard to have nice things and look after your pride and joy and some numpty comes along and wrecks it!

Agreed, extremely frustrating! And a problem which I suspect will only get worse.

 

[Beefy84]

Satch and brucemillar...interesting info. Park near the exit or stairs and they are treated to a quick getaway, park anywhere else and they can do their business away from prying eyes!

 

[Dieselman]

Cars normally get burgled for items left on display.

 

[brucemillar]

Satch and brucemillar...interesting info. Park near the exit or stairs and they are treated to a quick getaway, park anywhere else and they can do their business away from prying eyes!

The Police officers that spoke to me were quiet clear. These people have no concern about "prying eyes" as "prying eyes" do not stop/catch them.

It is common practise to drive a stolen car to the top floor, dropping the occupants on floors on the way up. Then on the way down they pick up the loaded up thieves before crashing the barriers in said stolen car. The exits just make for a good getaway should anybody try and spoil the party.

In my incident 16 cars were broken into in the same night by one such incident.

Only my experience.

 

[Beefy84]

Absolutely mad that it's so easy for them! Apparently they are using Bluetooth location devices as well so even if they can't see something worth a bit of cash they know where to go. Only one thing for it...bullet proof glass, an electric current through the bodywork and a canister or two of tear gas under the floor!

 

[brucemillar]

Cars normally get burgled for items left on display.

Correct. Although I think that in some cases thief's think that higher value cars may have higher value goodies left in the glove box etc, so they will have a punt. In my case nothing was stolen because there was nothing to steal.

That said the inconvenience was a big personal hassle. As was the drive home with a temp plastic drivers window (fitted by Auto Glass) this blew out as soon as I left Bristol. At this point God decided to repay me for my sins in a past life by allowing monsoon rain storms to sit directly over me and my car all the way home from Bristol to Kent. I did consider swimming the canal network may have got me home dryer than driving did. It was a homage to open top racing cars at Spa. My face looked like I had been force fed boiled sweets from a catapult. My lips folded over to look like a smashed up vagina. Some say I have never recovered.

 

[meeeb]

Correct. Although I think that in some cases thief's think that higher value cars may have higher value goodies left in the glove box etc, so they will have a punt. In my case nothing was stolen because there was nothing to steal.

Leave the glove box open?

 

[moonloops]

Leave the glove box open?

They'll just smash your windows and leave a not in the glovebox saying "just making sure"

 

[balge]

Strange, labour is so cheap burger joints can afford to pay people to stand around outside with placards, but you never get security patrols in car parks with millions of pounds worth of cars in them. Even the onsite cctv guys seem to spend most of their time helping people with the ticket machines.
Never mind, it's not like insurance is expensive...

 

[brucemillar]

They'll just smash your windows and leave a not in the glovebox saying "just making sure"

I have seen cars in London with stickers declaring "the car is unlocked and has nothing of any value inside."

 

[Rory]

Since I started working from home and hardly go anywhere I've become quite paranoid about having to leave my car anywhere. My greatest joy is to return to the car and find the cars on either side are the same so no-one has dented the sides!

I had to drive to our works Xmas do and leave my car in an open town centre car park and it properly spoiled my evening! Goodness knows what I'd be like if I had a decent car - I'd probably never take it off the drive!!

Funnily enough I don't feel the same about my wife's car, a fairly new Honda Jazz which is probably worth 2x mine. Pity it's not nice to drive it long distances.

 

[MrKenny]

Leave the glove box open?

My niece lives just south of Manchester city centre in a 'regenerated' area. They all leave their gloveboxes open. Which suggests that those that get broken into, and then rummaged through, were destined for it. Either that or the person breaking in is thick (polite version..). She looks positively embarrassed when you call in whilst passing through, about having to remind you to leave the glovebox open. BTW - she now has no parcel shelf as well, for the same reason!

 

[meeeb]

Since I started working from home and hardly go anywhere I've become quite paranoid about having to leave my car anywhere. My greatest joy is to return to the car and find the cars on either side are the same so no-one has dented the sides!

I had to drive to our works Xmas do and leave my car in an open town centre car park and it properly spoiled my evening! Goodness knows what I'd be like if I had a decent car - I'd probably never take it off the drive!!

Funnily enough I don't feel the same about my wife's car, a fairly new Honda Jazz which is probably worth 2x mine. Pity it's not nice to drive it long distances.

You can't imagine the joy in finding someone as paranoid as myself !

 

[itaintemeyouno]

Having had my car broken into in a Bristol Multi Storey the Police advised:

Never park near an exit or entrance. This includes the stairwells. Apparently your car thief likes an unobstructed getaway so the nearer their point of exit the better for them.

Mine was parked next to the stairwell exit.

Which car park in Bristol was this? Am originally from Bristol, and sometimes go there to meet up with the parents, and want to avoid parking up in this place. My wife had two bikes stolen from her car in Park Row car park a number of years ago (more than 10 years ago as it was before we got married.

 

[brucemillar]

It was/is the NCP. I was in the adjoining hotel for a conference and had hotel comp parking.

Sent from my iPhone using MBClub UK

 

[evdok]

Solution

Trunk Monkey 2 - YouTube