I also think the net financial risk of having your car stolen (which evidence suggests is decreased by locking your car) is significantly outweighed in aggregate by the risk of a broken window. We don’t have good statistics that I can find on the total cost of windows broken by thieves on an annual basis, but the FBI reports the value of stolen cars in a year, as of 2019, is around $6.4 billion.
Google searching suggests a broken side car window replacement runs $200 to $500, let’s go with the top end to give the window people their best narrative–there would have to be 12.8 million car windows broken out of cars by thieves per annum, for it to have the same total cost as the cars stolen. I find it very unlikely that 12.8m cars every single year have a window broken out of them by thieves. So the economic risk of car theft is far greater than the economic risk of window breaking.
Yes, and as stated, one knows their own circumstances better than the “general rule”. I think someone is being pretty stupid if they are worried about sharks on the streets of Ohio, but there may be a different assessment if they are swimming near the Channel Islands.
Heh, even if I left my laptop in my car, my Chromebook is still worth less than my window.
Even if that risk was even across all situations(which it is not), I still don’t think that that is a useful way to look at it for an individual.
You said you’ve never had your window broken. You’re either lucky or you are in a different situation.
Apparently there’s a rash of these sorts of robberies happening in my area too. Only unlocked cars outdoors are getting robbed. Police are aware of it, and have been begging people for about a year now to please lock your cars when they’re outdoors.
I can’t imagine our chief or mayor instructing officers to go on private property and then open car doors to lock them. I can’t imagine any resident taking kindly to it, either. I’m pretty friendly with the cops here and not the type of person to be possessive of my property but I don’t think I’d like it myself. As a council person I’d move to have that sort of thing stopped.
On a slightly unrelated note, my mom recently had her purse stolen from her shopping cart in the middle of the day at a suburban grocery store. I talked to 3 different cops about it and none of them had any sort of “wow that’s terrible!” reaction to it (every non-cop I talked to did have that reaction.) My closest cop friend was like “yeah she shouldn’t have had it in the cart like that. In fact I sometimes stop women at the grocery store and remind her to keep her purse more secure.” In my small sample size (granted, there’s probably 80 years of police experience between them) it seems like police aren’t too sympathetic if you don’t make every effort to protect your stuff. I’m sure they quickly tire of responding to calls where the victim fell prey to their own lapse in judgement.
Not very perfect at all, and not even close, really, unless you are for some reason thinking that I didn’t get the COVID vaccine as soon as I was eligible for it. Less parallel, and more orthogonal.
I’d say a better parallel would be the smallpox vaccine. In a certain time and place, absolutely. But, in other times and places, it can do more harm than good.
I think that another situational difference here is the value of things in my car. I can buy a brand new seat for my car for less than the cost of replacing my window. Same with an airbag.
I suppose if they took both, then it would be almost the cost of 2 windows.
Sure, if you are driving a super car, maybe locking that thing up is in your best interest. For my almost 10 year old Ford Focus, no one is going to be stealing my seats. They’d be lucky to get multiple dollars for them, much less thousands.
I’m assuming of course that the cigarette burn holes and dog claw marks don’t increase the value of the seats, anyway.
At least based on this data (you have to plug in specifics), even a 2011 Ford Focus the seat is significantly more expensive than a typical single window repair would be, just in parts cost:
Just went online to Safelite Autoglass, and came up with a $359.99 quote to repair a driver’s side window.
Rather than parting them out as you were looking to do on the website that you linked to, buying a whole seat is around $260-$280, depending on options I want.
Your car also has more than one seat FWIW. I think the truth is it’s pretty silly the way you’re acting like the windows in your car are made of Tiffany crystal and there is nothing worse that can happen to your car ever in a billion million years than someone breaking the windows. They can also easily pop the hood once inside your unlocked car and ransack different parts out of the engine etc that are good on the secondary market. All of this also ignores that we’ve already demonstrated basically all the experts disagree with the “leave your door unlocked” advice, and 15 out of 16 studies show following that advice significantly increases your risk of having your entire car stolen.
I’ve always locked my doors. Never had someone break the window to get in (or even just to be jerks). And when I had Jeep Wranglers, I never had the soft top sliced or cut to get in.
My current ride (Jeep Cherokee) has an alarm, and small flashing light can clearly be seen on the dashboard.
Anyway–I park directly under a street light so maybe that helps. And my ring doorbell is clearly visible.
My Cherokee was rummaged through a few months back, but that was my own fault. When I put up the windows when parking after work one night, I must have hit the button for the back passenger side window to lower it.
But lots of cars in my neighborhood get rifled through and usually it’s because it was left unlocked. Not too many reports of windows being broken. But that’s just in my neighborhood and surrounding area.
If you don’t lock your car door because you believe it’s more dangerous to lock it than to leave it unlocked (in your situation), you’re in a similar situation as the person who refuses the vaccine because they believe it’s more dangerous to be vaccinated than to be unvaccinated (in their situation).
Most people do, but with a 100 deductible. That is fire & theft insurance. Comprehensive insurance is a coverage that helps pay to replace or repair your vehicle if it’s stolen or damaged in an incident that’s not a collision. Comprehensive, sometimes called “other than collision” coverage, typically covers damage from fire, vandalism or falling objects (like a tree or hail).
I might have missed it since this thread is apparently now about the advisability of locking your car door, but does anybody think it’s okay for the police to be performing this “service” without the owners’ permission.
