Comment by swozey | Hacker News Reader

Comment by swozey | Hacker News Reader

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I will never, ever keep a car I care about outside anywhere near the city.

I know everyone doesn't have the funds for that, but I'm sorry, we all know how rampant car thefts have gotten since before those 3 Q50s in this video were even purchased. I live in the busiest neighborhood in downtown Denver with which has rampant property theft, cats cut out etc non-stop.

I own 2 vehicles and neither of them are ever parked outside if I can help it. It means I have to pay pretty much twice for rent because now I need a 1-2 car private garage, which means I'm probably now in a condo or townhouse so every expense just gets higher and higher.

But you're in the bracket of living downtown with a brand new Q50. So I don't care what your excuse is, buying a luxury/attention-getter car and parking it outside in cities with rampant car thefts is just absolutely stupid.

Especially the people who buy the $80k luxu-box with the $5k 22" wheel add-on that gets ripped out of their mid-rise apartment parking garage a day later.

I've had a car stolen and insurance does NOT treat you well when it happens and I never, ever want to deal with having a car stolen again no matter how much gaap/etc. I have.

> I know everyone doesn't have the funds for that

Its actually a fair bit cheaper to buy a $25k car than a $250k car.

Shhh! Don't tell anyone.

Some of the issue here is that it’s actually a pretty nice area here in Baltimore, but our police force is currently understaffed and overworked.

One big issue here regarding policing is that our city elected officials can’t tell the city police force what to do.

You see, when the civil war broke out, the state took control of the police force so that the mayor couldn’t lead a confederate coup.

Flash forward to today, and those powers still have never been returned to the city. The mayor and city council set the police budget, but the chief of police takes direction from a state run board.

So there is a big disconnect between citizens voicing concerns to city council members, and those members only ability is to “talk to the major”.

When the cats away, the mice will play off with some stolen cars.

If you haven't traveled/lived in many major cities since covid, they are all the exact same now. None of the police are working. I'm in Denver now, previously Austin in 2019, Dallas 2020, Denver 2020+, and Denver banned qualified immunity so the police work even less. Seattle just did the same thing + IIRC king county is doing that "police cant lie on stand" or whatever law. I lived on 2nd and congress in Austin for 12 years until 2016 and the entire downtown has turned to absolute trash.

I'm sure its the same in Chicago, LA, Portland, Tampa, etc and I don't even need to ask.

This sounds like a serious symptom of something being deeply fucked with policing in America.

Qualified immunity doesn’t exist in other first world countries with effective policing, in fact, the police in America have a lot of latitude to do all kinds of insane shitfuckery that doesn’t fly elsewhere.

It would be trivial to hard wire a kill switch to your fuel pump and have it hidden somewhere so no matter what thief’s can’t drive off with your car. Much cheaper and more secure as cars can be stolen from parking garages.

Put a kill switch in it they tow it. Put a Club in it they tow it and cut off the steering wheel. Put GPS on it they throw it in a faraday cage paintshop/train. Put a Dronemobile system in it the Police just won't investigate/track it down.

Really just have to not keep property outside anymore. I used to do the "It's not a big deal, i have full coverage" but had a car stolen and they (insurance) treat you like absolute trash when it happens.

So no more outside for my cars as much as I can

Lock it in your garage and now they break into your house and hold a gun to your head….ya maybe they tow it but not likely as they want to do this discreetly but at the end of the day of course if they were determined they could take anything. My point is a kill switch would stop 99% of theft.

> had a car stolen and they (insurance) treat you like absolute trash when it happens.

You've said this twice, but what does it mean? I have had my car stolen twice and the insurance company didn't give me any trouble at all and just paid out.

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