Who leaves car keys in their car?

R

Rose65

Well-known Member
Location
United Kingdom
I was curious, reading a novel where someone needs a getaway car and quickly finds one with keys left above the sun visor. Even more surprising when I looked up the odds of that happening - to find that apparently people really do that!
I wouldn't dream of making life so easy for a thief and surely it means your insurance is invalidated,?

I actually also know someone who leaves their house front door unlocked all day, only locking at night. This is a neighbour who says they have always done this and have no worries. I think this is madness.

Suffice it to say I keep front and back doors locked at all times except briefly when expecting a parcel. Even windows are all locked except on warm days when we are home. I certainly don't leave our bedroom or bathroom windows open at night.

So how security conscious are you?
 

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Our car has 'keyless' entry. As long as I have the key fob in my pocket, the car will unlock and I can drive. When I stop and walk away, the car automatically locks. This can be inconvenient if I'm unloading the groceries as every time I walk away, the car locks. To get round this I leave a door open till I'm finished unloading.

As for the house, the doors are only locked if we're out. This is common here and people rarely lock doors if they're in. Neighbours, postman etc always use the back door. Only strangers use the front one. It's a different world here.
 
Jules said:
Rose, why would you leave your door unlocked when expecting a parcel.

My doors are locked 100% of the time.
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Amazon emails when a parcel is coming, so we leave the outer porch unlocked, if we have to be out, otherwise all doors are locked.
 
Capt Lightning said:
Our car has 'keyless' entry. As long as I have the key fob in my pocket, the car will unlock and I can drive. When I stop and walk away, the car automatically locks. This can be inconvenient if I'm unloading the groceries as every time I walk away, the car locks. To get round this I leave a door open till I'm finished unloading.

As for the house, the doors are only locked if we're out. This is common here and people rarely lock doors if they're in. Neighbours, postman etc always use the back door. Only strangers use the front one. It's a different world here.
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Oh wow, couldn't a criminal simply walk in?
 
At home the car is in our garage. Out & about locked so that when returning to our car it's still there. And yes I know that breaking a window to steal it is possible. Home is air conditioned so windows & doors always locked. Eufy security cameras alert when someone is on our property.
 
Keys aren't ever left in the car. House is alarmed whenever we are gone. Alarm has a stay function for night-time that allows everything working, but we can walk around inside.

Neighbor keeps an eye out on our house as we do theirs at all hours since we both live away from others.
 
Rose65 said:
Amazon emails when a parcel is coming, so we leave the outer porch unlocked, if we have to be out, otherwise all doors are locked.
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I see. You have an outer porch door and an inner door before getting into the main part of the house.

The layout of our dead end road makes it almost impossible to see onto our porch. If a courier opened our door, alarms would be blasting.
 
I, too, have a keyless car. I never lock it outside my house. I live in the sticks, and the only way a crook could get here was with a car, so why would they steal another one? and the deer don't drive.
I guess it's for a large part of my life, my car was a crummy one that nobody would steal. It was 50-50 the thing would start.
 
Yeah, my car yells at me if I leave the fob inside. I think it uses the same "scale" to detect a butt in the seat that arms the airbags, so if the doors close with the fob inside it the car doesn't lock up without a driver's butt.
 
i think people obviously have different levels of comfort in locking up and such.... perhaps area they live.
the only people i know that had keys in a car was a beater car shared by siblings.... when one took keys they lost them often .... they hide the keys in better place then the visor though
I have doors unlocked in day time and only lock at night or if gone .... i have known too many who always locked everything and then step out door shuts and locks ..... one person i know often locked out of their own house regularly ....
the key less entry code type thing was her savior....
 
I keep my doors locked always, both car and house. Even if I am just out mowing I lock the doors. Person across the road from me has been seen trying to break into house and car of another neighbor.

I even have a device on the doors so that when I am here they cannot be kicked in.
 
For most people, especially in urban environments such reads irresponsibly dangerous. However those living in out of the way rural areas with multiple relatives/persons, some of which are almost always at home and with dogs, such may hardly be a concern. In any case, there are certainly numbers of urban people who throughout their lives become regular victims of their own unthinking careless, gambling it won't happen to them attitudes, only incrementally making changes after being burned. The less frequently specific troubles arise, the more likely such persons will not bother considering solutions. One see this all the time in our society.

One of the worst things that can happen to those adults that have accumulated wealth and materials over decades is when one's residence is destroyed by disasters like, flood, hurricanes, and fires. Yet here in California, despite media campaign warnings, myriad homeowners continue to build and live in their dense chaparral and forested surrounded urban homes without the slightest improvements, gambling during a next dry fall wind event, that firestorms won't occur by them. It's human nature, and as it separates more of the wise from the unwise, Darwin is laughing.
 
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Jeni said:
i think people obviously have different levels of comfort in locking up and such.... perhaps area they live.
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True. I grew up outside a big city area and even when I was a little kid, everybody locked everything, nobody walked anywhere by themselves at night, etc. Huzz grew up in a town with a population of 200, so he leaves everything unlocked, even though where we live now has a much higher pop., and then if anything's taken (like a dog leash out of our car that he left unlocked the other night), he's shocked and furious; I just shrug and say "Whaddaya expect? It was unlocked."
 
I live in a small village surrounded by farms. The biggest threat is to farmers and the theft of agricultural machinery or livestock. There is very little domestic crime. When my daughter and O.H. first visited us here, they were horrified to see my set of ladders sitting outside and the local joiner leaving tools and timber outside his house. Nobody would think of touching them.
 
A while back before I retired, thieves that were targeting houses that were out in the country during the day while residents were at work. In another area of the county, some thieves used ATVs to go up to houses/outbuildings through farm fields at night. A few were caught by officers who were waiting for them where they left their truck/trailer. None of these individuals were from the area.

I don't take it for granted because I'm out in the country that the POS's won't come along.
 
When I was 22 we moved to a town of 2k people and I was the only one locking doors. People would go in their friends house if they weren’t home to leave a message that they had stopped to see them. This was 47 years ago. People thought I was strange for locking my door but I grew up in a bigger town.
 

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