I try to be aware of this as I’m driving. As with every risk, you can’t eliminate it but can mitigate it some.
In the city I try to stay on an outside lane so I don’t get trapped* by other cars at a light.
When stopped, I leave a good-sized gap between myself and the car in front of me (so I can turn and drive away if needed).
I realize this doesn’t work for all cases, but one option (if someone’s trying to break the driver’s window) is the reversing right turn. Spin the wheel to your right while putting the car in reverse. When you accelerate backwards, the cars wheels and front end will take down your attacker. When pinned under the vehicle, they lose interest in the attack.
*I drive a sizable high-clearance truck. It can climb over most obstacles.
I pulled into the “cellphone lot” at the airport at 12:30 a.m. one night this week, waiting to pick up someone due to arrive on an incoming flight. The lot was isolated and unlit. Even with the car doors locked I was creeped out, thinking this would be a prime location for a robbery/carjacking.
My dad was carjacked by gunpoint as he was leaving a meeting. Well, all the people with him at the meeting, closing up the place, were.
Could he have fight back? Possibly. Could the attackers not have shot? Possibly. But my dad had (and has) important reasons to want to live, and the risk of dying was not worth the car. So they were able to get his car. He’s still traumatized to this day, but I’m glad he’s alive. Car be damned, by now it is spare parts (if at all), and it was replaced. But had something happened to my dad, he wouldn’t be replaced.
Really, because when all is said and done, a car is a material thing, and your life (and those of your loved ones) is more important (or should be). If you’re threatened with a deadly weapon, over a material posession… chances are most people would prefer to do whatever is needed to escape alive, rather than to confront the person with the weapon.
Gas stations, red lights, getting into your car, parking garages. How are you going to speed off with a gas nozzle in your hand or from a parking structure?
I do my best to preplan and not gas up at night and to park away from other cars if I’m going to be in a public lot in the city, but it’s not always possible. Usually if I’m going out with friends we walk each other to our cars and then drive the last person to theirs.
A few months ago, a friend was meeting me at a bar and got there before me. As she sat in a well lit, busy parking lot waiting for me (rather than walking to the bar by herself) someone tried to open her passenger door. Probably all they wanted was the purse that was sitting on the seat, but it scared the hell out of her.
It would help immensely if bad people looked creepy. Or lurked. Maybe they should lurk.
I’m picturing the gridlock I sat in in downtown Lowell yesterday evening. I was blocked in and unable to enter an intersection because of a freakin’ city bus!
Then again, the upside is that no one would bother to carjack if they literally could not drive away.
All of them were carjacked? Damn, that’s some good criminal planning.
QFE. I really love my vehicle and I wouldn’t fight a carjacker. That’s why I have insurance. Yes, it would be a pain in the ass and an inconvenience, but it’s less of a PITA than being dead.
I’m surprised at the people who say they become alert/worried/whatever if *anyone *approaches their car. I can’t think of anywhere I’ve parked lately where no one would legitimately be near my car. Park in downtown, there are pedestrians. Park in a downtown parking lot, there are pedestrians cutting through the lot. If you live in a crowded place for a while, you mentally ignore people statistically unlikely to cause you harm. Giggling tween girls with backpacks; moms with baby carriages and small children; groups of people more intent on talking to each other than paying attention to you; couples all lovey-dovey. All mentally ignored. Women in suits or office clothes with briefcases, ditto. People over about the age of 50 also get ignored.
Now, the lone 25-year-old guy in work clothes loitering? Yeah, *him *I’m keeping an eye on.
Anyone who tries to jack an beat up 98 Subaru wagon with an old nasty looking biker in the front seat, a St. Bernard dog next to him barking like mad and a weapon under his right leg really should be removed from the gene pool post haste.
Wife is good looking grey haired old woman in a nice car. I pity the fool that tries to mess with her, she is quick with her CCW and is very situationaly aware and much meaner and more quick to react to remove idiots from the gene pool than I am. And she is never in a good mood while in a car. Bawahahaha
We are old now and no longer do big cities so our exposure is very small but we still keep the fire extinguishers handy just in case. That is one of the reasons we have lived to be old. And there are more idiots now than ever before.
Hee. I was waiting in line at a NJ turnpike gas station (full service, ahh!) when someone came and opened my passenger door and started getting in. (I think my doors all unlocked when I put the car in Park.) And then realized it wasn’t the car he thought it was.
I drove a yellow cab in New York City in the bad old days of the early 1980s.
On multiple occasions, I had people try to get into my cab for nefarious purposes. A couple of times I never saw them coming. One creep actually got the front passenger side door open and was getting into the car. I took off. I think he got hurt – he was on the ground, not getting up, when I looked in the rear view mirror.
And yes, I knew the difference between a fare and a creep.
Really? I’ve never locked my car doors while I’m in the vehicle. The one car I owned that locked automatically drove me nuts until I figured out how to disable that “feature”.
I’m trying to picture this in my head. When you say spin the wheel to the right, do you mean turn the steering wheel clockwise? I would have thought that you’d do best to turn in the other direction, such that the back of the front right wheel is sticking out, and will hit the guy as you go in reverse. Hard to communicate about this in text without a diagram though.
A friend of mine got carjacked this year. The robbers worked in a team of four, in two cars; they got ontwo sides of her car, then one got out from each car. She found herself with a pair of guns being pointed at her through the windows and wisely choose not to see what they’d do if forced to break through the glass.
The vehicle I currently drive automatically unlocks the car when I put it into park. Drives me nuts; what if I’m not ready to get out? What if I park but there’s a baddie nearby and he hears all the doors unlock?