In and around the Palo Alto, CA region there have be a rash of automotive smash and grabs up and down University Ave and the Stanford Mall.
What surprised me was who the victims were, or more specifically, what helped perpetrate the crimes was the fact that the car owners, when leaving their cars, would leave their possessions in plain view on the seats of their cars. No wonder the thefts are occurring.
When an evil-doer is stalking the streets or parking lots and see something of value in plain site, that’s all they’re going to go for. It doesn’t matter if you have an alarm or not. No one pays attention to alarms. They’re looked at as nuisances of noise and ignored. And it takes an incredibly short amount of time to take a crow bar or other window-breaking tool to destroy your window, lean in grab your valuable and walk away.
To prevent this silly crime wave, all you really need to do is not leave things in plain site. Crooks won’t take chances breaking into cars not knowing what’s in them. It really is that simple and it takes so little to hid your possessions in your car. Put them in your trunk, put them on the floor cover them up with a jacket or what have you. Just put them out of site and you should be OK.
In the news broadcast there was one woman whose had her car broken into so many times that she leaves her windows open so she doesn’t have to replace them any more. Ma’am, just put your stuff out of sight and never replace another window again.
Now you know.
