Ca. 6 weeks ago, someone has found in the next village, just 100 meters away of my parents-in-law's house, an Opel Astra, unlocked and with purse, papers and other personal belongings in it. The car was standing since more than a week. Nothing was stolen.
The owner, and older man, has commited a suicide. He jumped in the canal and has drowned himself.


It may sounds cynical, but I had two thoughts:
a) An advice, that the area is not rough
b) Hrrmphh, why here? It's the place, where I use to jump into the canal for refreshing, when it's hot weather.

Cynism or not, I couldn't have done anything against, what has happened.

Everybody leaves the car sometimes (not too often at all) unlocked by accident and the car is still there when you come back obviously, but in the same way that it is there it could have been gone or missing your pesonal stuff that was inside, not a problem whether my area is bad or not since we have a private garage to park the car but anyway whether the zone is bad or good doesn't matter, as i said everybody locks the car when it's parked outside, whether a shopping centre underground parking or a crowed street of a city the car is always left locked by everybody.

I do so usually, but it depends of the area, where I am. It may sounds presumptous or disdainful, but sometimes I'm saying to me "I'm living in a better area on the countryside. The standard is higher than in the town, so it's not neccessary to lock the car."

Yes, for me it's a question of the standard of living and the quality of the area, if you can leave car and house open without any doubts. Sure, thefts are happening everywhere (I know this, I', working in the claim-department of an insurance-company. Burglaries are my daily job), but my opinion is still "in a good neighbourhood it's not neccessary to lock everything". It's not total realistic, but I keep on thinking this.


Oh, one time I've parked my 1987-Passat Variant in the town center of Dortmund (not too bad area, but not really good) and went into the city on foot. After 2 hours I got a shock "Where the hell are my car-keys??? Neverwhere to find. I went nervously back with the thoughts "Fuck, I must call the ADAC to open my car and to short-circuiting the ignition-lock. "
But finally I've found the key - stuck in the lock of the driver's door!!!


My wife usually locks the doors in the evening, I don't take too much care for that. It has happened a few times, when I had my own apartment, that I've slept the whole night with an open terrace-door and more often with open car-doors. Two times I even have left my purse on the passenger's seat...
But this is much too reckless and not to apologize - but it had happened.
And the following day in the office I had aggressive discussions at the phone with customers, who didn't get any money, because their thefts or burglaries could happen, because they had bee much too reckless with locking their houses.

It depends, where you are. Once a friend got a lough-flash. It happend in the rough harbour-, red-light- and disco-district of Hamburg-St.Pauli. He saw, how a total drunken guy has heavily puked up - onto the white leather-seats of an open parked Mercedes 500 SL.


Years ago me and a friend have transported a rotten K 70 into our garage for wrecking. This car stand outside, under trees and bushes for several years. We loaded it on the trailer with all the dirt and dust on it. The stuff flew away, when we have reached the 80 km/h. The faces of the young couple in the car behind us had been worth to be photographed - it was an open Golf I Cabriolet.

I don't like it, when behind me on hte autobahn are coming too close to push me from the left lane...


Today I drove with my K 70 to our club-meeting to Frankfurt (total ca.700 km). One time, on the autobahn A 45, upway to a hill, in a 100 km/h-zone, there was one idiot so impudent and tried to shove me from behind -I drove 130 km/h!- the impudence here, was (for me) not the behaviour shoving, it was the car -a fucking junky 1995 Ford Fiesta! Sorry, but this was too annoying, so I fucked on the speed limit and have pushed down the gas-pedal (fortunately a friend have adjusted valves, ignition and carburator yesterday evening). On top of the hill (still in the 100 km/h-zone) my K 70 has reached 150 km/h - and this stinky Fiesta was not behind me any more.
My car is 36 years old, yes - but 90 hp are 90 hp.

Strange, that sometimes people are thinking, that old cars have no power. Once a girl has tried to shove me - with a shitty 1990 Daihatsu Cuore! This is an impudence!



But the next little race today, on the A2 I've lost.
Even with full throttle I couldn't hold the speed of the 1969' BMW 2002.

Some years ago, on the way to a big classic car-market and -meeting I've won such a top speed race - against a 1967 Glas 1700 TS.
Just 5 hp had made the difference. About the aerodynamic drag of both cars it's not necessary to talk...

Even if you have an old banger no one wants bird shit in their car! But yes, if you've got a fabric interior like me, it probably doesn't wipe away as easily.

Like CCF said, it's probably all about where you live, if I lived in one of those picturesque villages in the country, maybe I'd be more laid back about home/car security, but I still think leaving your front door or car unlocked is bloody daft! (In my humble opinion )

Ha, you worry about the sunroof being open? How about the entire top! I did have a bird poo in my car once with the top down, but it has leather seats so it easily wipes away. Maybe if they were cloth I'd be more worried.

I seldom leave anything of importance in my car anyway, and if I do I lock the doors. I don't think joyriders even exist here, so I'm not worried about it getting stolen either.

In any public car park, yes I do. I just think it's better to be safe than sorry, if I left the windows down anyone could just come along and reach in and say steal my phone (even though I always put it in the compartment between the front seats), even though where I live there's probably much less crime than in other parts of the country (especially the big cities). But then I'm just a natural worrier (the media doesn't help and I always see adverts/notices telling you not to leave valuables on display in your car) My mum would always leave the Omega (which is now more-or-less my car) unlocked in the driveway, and I thought it was stupid. As it's nearly summer it's become warmer over here but yesterday as I parked in my driveway I thought about leaving the sunroof open, but then I thought what if one of the birds that sits on the roof of our house flies over and dumps into the car!

By the way I reckon young joyriders (not that I really worry about them) are more likely to steal an older, cheaper car than an expensive one with more sophisticated security systems.

Then this might be again a cultural thing otherwise i really don't understand it, there's no one i know that doesn't lock the car or leave the windows open wide, absolutely no one in Europe (well i'll talk for my country here) leave the car unlocked on the street or with the windows open, now this is really stupid anybody could open it and steal anything even the car itself..., then this proves Max that when we watch an american film and we see that the main character always finds an unlocked car to runaway it's true

I lock my doors and only keep the windows cracked open in the summer (otherwise they're all the way up). I feel too paranoid about someone stealing or vandalizing my car even though I know there's nothing worth stealing in the car.


At the Taurus forum I visit, the members encourage setting the parking brake and correct people when they call it a E-Brake. Not using the parking brake can strain the motor mounts and parking pin. I've heard of parking pin failures from not using the parking brake which ended up with people having to start using the parking brake or using a parking brick.


And here's a picture of the brake release handle in relation to the hood release:


Funny story, my family rented a Chevy Uplander once for a vacation and it had a parking brake pedal that you would push to set and push again to release. When I took over driving from my uncle I didn't notice that he never set the parking brake. I instinctively bent down and pulled on the brake release handle (Chevy put the hood release where the brake release handle would be on a Ford). I heard a THUNK and thinking the brake pedal shot up and went on my merry way. It wasn't until the next stop that I realized that the hood was popped the entire second leg of the trip.