I locked it. But I’m losing it...
By David Menzies for MSN Autos
So there I was at Toronto’s Yorkdale Mall the other day. How odd: returning to my automobile after doing some Christmas shopping, what appears to be a parking ticket is fluttering on the windshield. But Yorkdale is a bastion of acres of free parking. What gives?
Turns out it wasn’t a parking citation. Evidently, Officer Friendly had given me a ticket for... well, being a good little boy.
It had words to the effect of, “Jolly good job! Your doors are locked, your windows are rolled up, overall, very good!”
Isn’t that special?
Your correspondent had a flashback to his Grade Two days at Danesbury Elementary. I had written something that was deemed by Mrs. Wiltshire to have been profound (would you believe half-decent?) and I received one of those coveted gold stars. Let me tell you, dear reader, I was elated. But then again, I was seven years old...
In any event, my initial gut reaction in terms of getting a whiz-bang new age gold star some 43 years after Grade One was this: someone’s playing an April Fool’s Day joke five months early. Or could it be those wacky mirth makers from Just for Laughs Gags were in town and a hidden video camera was focussed on my face – a face that was conveying a look of disbelief and, later, revulsion.
Here’s the scoop: police officers – yes, bona fide cops, not mall cops – patrol shopping centre parking lots making certain everyone has their windows rolled up and their doors locked.
Does this sound like a good use of police resources to you?
Lock it or lose it, indeed – I felt like I might “lose it” if I were to gaze upon police officers reduced to glorified caregivers in the service of the nanny state, roaming shopping malls at Christmastime, leaving little notes on cars about what a great job we are or doing in, er, locking our vehicles?
Note to police forces everywhere: in this day and age of keyless entry, locking a vehicle isn’t all that hard.
According to the Insurance Bureau of Canada, which is apparently driving this nonsense, more than 82,000 vehicles were stolen in Canada last year.
Too bad, so sad. But if the IBC wants to engage in public awareness programs, can it hire its own private security guards to patrol parking lots? Maybe I’m a crank, but I’d much rather the agents of law enforcement would do better things with their time ... like, oh, actually enforcing the law?
Hopefully these social workers with badges and guns won’t go stateside with their Lock It or Lose It program. I’ve come across cars in some ‘hoods in which the driver purposely leaves the car unlocked (with a note on the dashboard stating this condition) so some thug up to no good won’t shatter a window for no reason.
Gracious ... what would the members of the Lock It or Lose It Brigade say about that?
Justin Couture
Mark Atkinson
John LeBlanc
Posted by: Steve Kee | 2012-12-21 9:57:16 AM
First off, congratulations for locking your car and not becoming a crime statistic. Point missed in all of this -- in 2011, 82,411 vehicles were stolen in Canada. Auto thefts in Ontario amounted to just more than $93 million in 2011 – an insurance cost that is passed on to consumers. Lock it or lose it is a police initiaive, sponsored in part by IBC but also assisted by many in the community volunteers. Public awareness is important. Why would we want someone to become another victim of crime?