Keep Your Keys Close

Just before I proceed with this post I’d like to say up front that I don’t own a car. I may therefore make presumptions that many of the world’s car owners would not. I won’t claim to know the ins and outs of owning or operating a motor but I do know that cars tend to be fairly expensive bits of kit. A quick glance in the classified ads shows them ranging from a few hundred bucks for some clapped-out, bone shaking wreck up to hundreds of thousands for the best hand built sports cars. In most cases their car is the second most expensive item that they own after their house. A fact that often leaves me wondering why a lot of people seem to be so utterly contemptuous about their cars.

I’m thinking specifically about one thing here: Remote Central Locking.

You know the score, and you’ve probably see it happen or even seen it yourself. A driver stops their motor at the kerb and gets out. They start walking away and hit the button on their key that locks the car doors; most of the time they don’t even look back as they walk away.
What I’ve often wondered is what would happen if a bold chancer were to open one of the doors before the driver could press the remote locking button. Obviously it’s unlikely that the thief could actually steal the car as most modern manufacturers tie the engine immobiliser into the lock system. Still they would be inside the car and could rifle through the driver’s belongings or if they had the stomach for it: lie in wait for the driver to return and bushwhack them. If I can think of this surely the world’s less reputable denizens can as well.

It just seems to me that people need to be a bit more careful with their possessions. I know these four wheeled magical horseless carriages seem difficult to steal what with them weighing over a metric tonne and all, but it can and does happen.

I think a lot of this effort saving technology is making us complacent, and eventually it’s going to come back and bite us in the ass. Maybe I’m old fashioned, but I like to know that my belongings are securely under lock and key when I go away to leave them. I like to feel the key turn and hear the lock click under my direct control. At the very least I would make sure that I watched the car as it locked and tried one of the door handles afterwards. You wouldn’t run out the front door of your house and not check it was locked would you?