I was pulling out of a grocery store parking lot yesterday. It was a busy place in broad daylight.
A guy appeared on the passenger side of my car, indicating he wanted to talk to me. I rolled the window down partially.
“Excuse me”, he said, pointing to the front ot the car. “I noticed the damage to your headlight. I could fix it for you…”
He seemed scammy. And I was pretty sure there was no such damage (confirmed when I got home). So I just rolled the window up and drove off.
On reflection, I’m wondering if he was trying to lure me out of the car to the passenger side with the motor running, at which point a second guy in hiding would jump in and drive off (after the first guy got in on the passenger side). If so, it wouldn’t have worked: I always shut off the engine and take the keys when I leave the car, even for an instant.
I’ve read of carjackings around here in police reports. I assumed they were done at knife or gunpoint. But maybe not always.
If it wasn’t an attempted carjacking, what was it?
If not that, almost certainly something nefarious. How many people have the knowledge, supplies and skills to fix a headlight on the fly and goes wandering around looking for spot work?
Yes, the fact that he was empty-handed added to my suspicions.
It’s possible they planned to roll me, but that would have taken a lot of guts in broad daylight in front of lots of people (there were cars behind me in line to exit).
If you were in Texas you could have shot him just in case.
But joking aside, your car was running? Passenger-side? I’d say an attempted car jacking. Just curious, as you pulled out did you notice anyone else around?
I was about to pull out of the parking lot, so yes, my car was running. If they were going to carjack me, it would have been necessary for me to exit the car, and leave the engine running. If I had exited after shutting off the engine, it would have scuttled their plans. Or at least complicated them, by requiring violence.
And the carjacking angle didn’t occur to me at the time, so I didn’t bother to look for others.
It could have been someone who does auto headlight polishing. If the plastic cover is fogged over, he may have the stuff to polish it clear again. I don’t recall seeing that happen in parking lots, but I have seen people setup tents and do windshield chip repair. Doing headlight polishing in a parking lot would be similar.
At some of the auto parts stores around here, there are people who set up an impromptu repair shop in the parking lot of the store. If you need something like a brake job, they’ll do it in the parking lot and get the parts from the auto parts store. It could have been someone like that looking to drum up some business.
There was one I saw regularly in my city. But it was pretty obvious what it was, they had a tent and signs. It wasn’t just some guy flagging people down as they were trying to leave the parking lot.
They’re probably more likely in the parts of town where people are so cost conscious that they resort to getting a parking lot brake job at rock bottom prices. And it won’t really be like a mobile shop with a nice trailer. It’ll be someone with some tools and a sign on their car that says “Joe’s Auto Repair”.
I’ve had a couple of strange interactions involving attempted car jacking.
Last month I was driving through a parking lot and somebody nearby sitting at a bus stop that bordered the parking lot saw my car, got up and frantically started pointing at the bottom of my car and shouting something unintelligible. I ignored them, drove off and stopped in a parking lot a mile away just to check to see if I was dragging something and nope. Feels like it was a similar scam, they wanted me to get out of my car right then and there to inspect and then they would jump into the car.
5 years ago I had a rather open attempt at car jacking, I was waiting at side of the road next to a restaurant with my car running looking up map directions on my phone, somebody walked up to my cars passenger site and motioned for me to roll down my window. I cracked it like 10% to say what was up and the guy pulled a small knife and told me to get out of the car.
Now, he is literally ON THE OPPOSITE SIDE OF THE CAR, ARMED JUST WITH A POCKET KNIFE, AND HAS AN ENTIRE WINDOW BETWEEN HIM AND ME. I just shouted FUCK YOU and hit the gas and got out of there. I wasn’t even scared just more annoyed and I didn’t want him to try to punch my window in a vain attempt to get in. I was kind of hoping I ran his foot over when I took off but even 5 minutes later I was laughing at the whole thing, just how bad his plan was.
Maybe not even that - I’ve had people try to pull this on me , offering to fix dents cheap. There are probably people who actually do the work, but I wouldn’t trust that.
Your second incident in an example of why I’m not sure the guy I encountered was willing to commit violence. A lot of muggings are predicated on the assumption/hope that all victims will hand over their wallet, car, etc. without a struggle.
Any strangers? That seems overly draconian. I’ll continue what I’ve been doing: exercising caution and judgement, and gathering knowledge of threats. Which is why I started this thread.
If it was something nefarious, I might think he’d say something more compelling and urgent to get you out of the car. Asking to fix your headlight is not the best way to someone out of their car. Not many people are going to let a random person in the parking lot work on their car no matter what. A better ploy for a carjacker might be to say something like sparks are coming out of the car or it’s leaking coolant or oil. Something like that might be more likely to get the driver to get out of the car rather than asking to do an impromptu repair on the car. But I’m not sure that the type of person who carjacks is a thoughtful and careful planner, so anything is possible.
