Suburban police in Chicago have begun warning residents in their towns about the danger of leaving their cars unlocked and their key fobs inside the cars. One police chief said, " On any given night, I can head out to Oak Brook, Hinsdale, or go up to Lake Fores and drive off with an unlocked Jaguar, BMW, Mercedes or, if I'm lucky, a Maserati."
These are all upscale suburbs where you'd assume the people who live there have some smarts, but it seems they do not. They not only leave their cars unlocked, but they leave the key fob in it. Key fobs are the most recent type of key for cars these days. We have one that came with Dale's car. It doesn't have to be put into a slot on the steering column, in fact there is no slot. You can put it just about anywhere in the car and by pushing a button on the dash, the car starts. One friend of ours told Dale when he got this car, "just leave it in your pocket so you won't be tempted to forget it in the car."
St. Louis has its own issues with car thefts and the local Clayton police often put out notices on Facebook and neighborhood internet pages about car thefts which occurred because the owner left the car open and the key in the cup holder. Again this is an area where you'd think people were smarter than this.
This from a member of a former auto theft task force about the sense of entitlement coming from many whose whose cars were stolen: "People just don’t accept responsibility today. They ask, ‘Why are there not more police around?’ When the real question is, ‘Why didn’t you take your keys with you and not leave them in an unlocked car?"
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