Motoring
Burglars at work
Alan Judd
The first sign that something was wrong as I hurried home to my Range Rover in the station carpark was that the side lights were on. Next I found the driver's door unlocked, then I noticed bits of plastic on the seat. For once it wasn't the radio but the ignition surround; the locking mecha- nism was mutilated and jammed, so the key wouldn't fit. They'd tried to turn it with a spanner, having got in by hammering a screwdriver through the passenger door lock. Not a subtle job.
On Easter Monday most of the ungaraged cars in our village, including my wife's, had the fuel caps forced and fuel siphoned (actually, they couldn't get at the Passat's because of a filter). Just over a year ago, in rural Buckinghamshire, the window was smashed and the radio stolen. Several years before, my beloved Mark II Jaguar was left on a London street for one night and never seen again. The crime before that was when I surprised a group of youths who must be colourless trying to steal my P5B Rover. Compared with many, therefore, we've escaped pretty lightly but it's still expen- sive, inconvenient and very annoying. It's puzzling that so many people steal radios when almost every car has one and you can get them cheaply from scrap yards. There must be a market but I doubt it's very lucrative and you wouldn't think it worth the risk and trouble. Presumably, the thieves are rarely caught and don't mind too much when they are. The cack-handed numbskull who made such a mess of failing to steal my 13-year-old Range Rover wasn't a remotely professional car thief, who would have no interest in such a vehicle. It was probably a joy-rider or housebreaker, the latter perhaps arriving by train to pinch a capacious swag-wagon and do a property in the area (the rectory was burgled that same afternoon).
I read that in Japan car crime is almost unknown. It would take a generation or two to instil (or restore) similar social disci- pline here and imagine the whingeing and whining as the necessarily severe measures bite home in the early years (a lip-smacking thought in my present mood). Doubtless car theft will become harder as the more effective alarms, immobilisers and tracking devices now fitted to expensive models per- colate down through the market, but they won't stop sheer wanton vandalism and spite. Doubtless, also, whoever owns rail- way stations this week could provide some elementary security. The old video camera wouldn't cost too much, given what they charge you for putting your car in the tar- get area.
I suppose it teaches us not to become too attached to earthly things, which received opinion insists is so good for us. It certainly reinforces the argument against measuring quality of life in numbers of cars or fridges or whatever, since the good life surely includes being able to leave the door on the latch or the key in the ignition. In fact, my father still does the latter, day and night, but no one seems to want the Maxi, nor any of the rags, animal feed sacks and small living creatures crowded inside it. Like, I imagine, many above a certain age in these islands I was brought up in houses that were never locked even at night; you called on people and walked in and left a note on the kitchen table if they weren't there. Now we're advised to lock the car when refuelling, lest it vanish while you're reaching for the nozzle.
I wonder about keeping a snake in the car, trained to recognise me and fed on trainers, jeans, loose shirts, nose-studs and ear-rings. The question would be whether to sport a Snake on Board notice or simply to leave the victim to discover that what he thought was the seat-belt reaching across his shoulder was, in fact, a boa-constrictor fastening his neck to the headrest while it considered where to start. Survivors, if any, would gratefully accept punishment to fit the crime, such as cleaning every car in the carpark every day for a year. I once thought a particular breed of malefactor should be suspended between the arms of Tower Bridge, which would then be opened an inch a day. Nowadays, Sky TV would have the rights and people would bet on which bit came adrift first. I recall the punishment more vividly than the supposed crime (as might the victim), but I've a feel- ing it was architecture.
The cheap answer to the casual thief, I guess, is one of those highly visible steering locks. Or a wheel-clamp. Or perhaps I should offer the Range Rover as a place where shopping mothers could safely leave their bawling infants. No yob would go near it then.
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