guy? he’s a gentleman!
London Gentleman gives Florida Man some competition!
Florida man would have, at least, dropped a deuce in there…
and then fell asleep!
Where did that “wet floor” sandwich board come from at 0:48?
As the Brits would say…“What a wanker!”. This is why many people who own convertibles intentionally leave the doors unlocked. It’s far more preferable to be robbed than to have the roof cut up by an asshat like this. Whatever’s inside is far cheaper to replace than the soft top.
Is this a thing? I’d think “letting thieves enter your car hoping they just want to steal what’s in it” to be a poor strategy considering, well, maybe they’re car thieves.
I left my convertible unlocked for this very reason. If they’re going to steal it then there’s not much you can do about that anyway. A window made of plastic isn’t going to stop them.
After having 2-3 soft tops cut up and replaced at many thousands of $$ I figured they can have my $100 stereo. You also learn quickly not to keep anything of value inside (or lock it in the trunk/boot).
About three times a year I do a research training session for cops taking a management training course. The cops come to class with a research topic in mind. Every single semester there’s a group that’s researching theft-from-cars crimes of opportunity. So it’s definitely a thing, and it’s something people are interested in researching.
(It’s also a really thorny research problem, because there’s tons of research on grand theft auto, and not nearly as much on thefts FROM cars. The search vocabulary space basically means that if you try to search for just the theft-from-autos problem you get drowned out with articles about actual car thefts.)
Let’s face it…most modern cars are actually very difficult to steal for a run-of-the-mill street punk. Rooting under the dash for wires to hotwire is just in the movies.
I surmise that most car theft is done by organized teams with the necessary skills to bypass anti-theft mechanisms or use duplicate/master keys. Hell, I’d bet most thefts are done with a tow truck - just take the whole thing away quick and easy to the nearest chop shop for parts.
Regardless, a simple door lock is no real deterrent for somebody looking to steal your car.
This is all true. I think that as research problems go there’s a lot more richness in the auto theft direction itself, as opposed to the crime of opportunity problem, because of technology and organized crime and the like. But I think theft-from-cars has the cops’ interest because most of these students are interested in community-oriented policing, and so they’re approaching it from an angle of, “what can we do in terms of social support and policing practice to address the causes of these crimes?” For them it’s really a sociological avenue of inquiry more than anything else. And like your post suggests, petty crimes like theft-from-cars are much more “accessible” – and therefore prevalent – in the modern setting than actual car theft is.
That said, about a week ago a neighbor had a locked 2012 Civic stolen (more or less silently) out of their driveway while they were home. Still trying to puzzle that one out.
Those left hand drive cars can be a bit confusing for us Brits.
I have a sign on my Toyota Scion, “To steal this car, you must be able to drive a stick.”
“To steal this car, you must be willing to drive a Scion.”
I kid, I kid.
That was remiss of me! I fixed it.
haha, thanks.
gentlman
nearly there 
