<VV> REALITY HAS STRUCK
Dave Morris
BigD at DaveMorris.com
Tue May 17 14:16:29 EDT 2005
The sticker on my window with a photo of a king cobra and the text "Caution
- Poisonous snakes" seems to keep the lowlifes away from my cars.
Dave Morris
At 12:37 PM 5/17/2005 -0700, you wrote:
>At 04:03 hours 05/17/2005, Mark Noakes wrote:
>>Not that it's at all guaranteed but if I have to leave my car someplace
>>that I feel uncomfortable, I pull the coil wire totally out and take it
>>with me. Even ignition disablers could be bypassed at the engine
>>compartment. An engine lid lock would go a long way towards keeping
>>someone out.
>
>
>
>Trouble is, that won't stop the hit&run thieves who use standard "repo"
>wreckers which simply back up to the car, the swivelling "claw foot" lift
>extends under and around the tires and plucks the car up and off it
>goes. Depending on the vehicle, the driver might not even have to get out
>of the wrecker. In the case of an older vehicle like a Vair, the crook
>will "slim-jim" the window and released the e-brake and/or bungie-cord the
>steering wheel, depending on which end of the car he's backed up to, takes
>about 10 seconds tops if they're good. What's more, he could do it and
>nobody would likely know anything was wrong if the door of the wrecker had
>an official sounding name in big bright letters on it, complete with bogus
>phone number. A large magnetic stick-on banner works well, goes on and
>comes off quickly and easily, nobody is the wiser.
>
>A fellow I know who ran a wrecker service used to do contract work for a
>local bank, repo'ing cars from lien-bearing deadbeat customers. He'd tow
>a project Vair for me now and again cheap, knew him from Back When. He
>told me all sorts of things on how to go pick up a car with his new
>space-age "fork foot" claw lift wrecker and be off with it in 30 seconds
>or less. He was a big "country boy" named Aubrey, business was called
>"Fat-Boy's Towing".
>
>He also went on to tell me that these new wreckers with the swivel
>claw-feet pickups were great for the tow-recovery business since people
>like him who carry a little extra padding around the middle don't have to
>crawl under a car to hook up to it.
>
>However, it also made car thieves much more efficient since they could
>simply back up to a targeted vehicle and clamp onto the tires, pick it up,
>and be off and gone with it in less time than it takes most people to go
>into Burger King and buy a milkshake... and never actually lay a finger on
>the car itself.
>
>Moral of story: Don't leave the specialty or vintage car outside
>unguarded or where it's easy to get to it with a wrecker. Get an alarm
>with motion sensor. Steering wheel locks won't help, and in fact can
>actually aid a crook with a space age wrecker since he wouldn't have to
>secure the steering wheel to pick the car up by its back wheels and pull
>it off. If you can cough up the bucks, get a locator transmitter and
>install it on the car so if it's stolen the cops can track it.
>
>I can think of few things which would tick me off worse than having some
>lowlife steal a car of which I thought highly.
>
>
>
>tony..
>
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