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My crappy 10 year old Civic got stolen from in front of my apartment on the day of my wedding reception. My wife freaked out but I wasn't phased too much - she
by danielodievich 4y ago
My crappy 10 year old Civic got stolen from in front of my apartment on the day of my wedding reception. My wife freaked out but I wasn't phased too much - she still praises me for it - and called the police for the report, and a friend for a ride. We had a great party that day and a fun topic to discuss at it. Anyhow, the car was found few days later in a really bad part of town, but police didn't call us that quick like they did this lucky recipient of vinyl, so it was re-stolen from the place it was dropped off.
About 40 days later after my insurance written it off and the police called and said come pick it up from a junkyard. It had someone else's license places, and was severely damaged after a full-front hit on the telephone pole after apparently a high-speed police chase. Who runs away from the police in a Honda Civic?! Anyhow, even though it was hit hard in front, the airbag never engaged, so I guess I am glad it wasn't me. There was blood inside everywhere, clearly the two people who were inside were quite hurt. Anyhow, I opened the trunk to get my jumper cables and lo and behold - tools! in pretty good toolbags, too! Decent looking respirators! Strange chemicals! Lots of ammonia in large jugs! A wallet with lots of stolen checks in it. A small bag with some dude's underwear. But my old set of jumper cables is, alas, gone...
I brought everything home, including (perhaps stupidly? certainly my wife thought so) ammonia and powdered chemicals. As I discovered the powder stuff lye and clearly this was all meth-making equipment. The undies had to go, but I kept some of the tools and respirators. I freecycled ammonia. We made some soap out of lye, so that was helpful.
The people who stole it were put in jail for various offences for a couple of years, including stealing my car. The court asked me if I had any claims and I said naah, I don't want to add to someone's bad life choices... Then , except for the $500 insurance deductible, which they deducted from his jail wages for next 3 years, and kept sending me small checks for like $19.28 or $8.78 every few months. The checks followed me to another house even though I completely forgot to update the address with the court (nice) and stopped right at $500.
- leke 4y agoMy god, you're like the chillest person. I wish I could let go of things as easily as you.
- AllegedAlec 4y agoI've been trying to get less angry, and I found that reading Meditations helps me a lot. It's all about reframing. > “If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.”
- myself248 4y agoI always thought I'd blow a gasket if my car was ever broken into. What a violation of personal space! And all my stuff! Then it happened. They got my TomTom and my digital camera, plus _the entire backseat and hatchback full of old computers and printers that I was taking to e-waste the next day_. The moment I pictured the thieves walking into a pawnshop with that stuff, and getting laughed right back out, I couldn't be mad anymore. I was still annoyed that I had to go get the window fixed and buy a new TomTom on eBay for $35, but the actual results of the theft just sent me into giggles every time. Still do.
- 2arrs2ells 4y agoThe best part is you can. Not saying it’s easy (and certainly far easier for some people than others), but how you react to events is one of the very few things that’s actually under your control. Some of the most useful self-work I’ve done, for sure.
- lawlorino 4y agoCould you expand a bit on what the self-work entailed?
- 2arrs2ells 4y agoAll sorts of things. Therapy. Psilocibin. A girlfriend (now wife) with a wildly different worldview than my own. Retreats. Meditation. ‘Conscious community”. Workshops. Yoga.
- stdclass 4y agoStoicism in a nutshell
- InCityDreams 4y ago>Then , except for the $500 insurance deductible, which they deducted from his jail wages for next 3 years, No phone-calls for you. * you're a chill person, i think you did everything perfectly, but gosh! how they must have suffered. Fuck 'em. Well done.
- dTal 4y agoSo it didn't have your plates on the outside, or your belongings on the inside. Are you absolutely sure it was your Civic? :p
- chairmanwow1 4y agoThis is an absolutely wild story
- brazzledazzle 4y agoI’m shocked the police didn’t search the car. They always seem very eager to tear everything apart to pop someone with additional charges. Maybe because they weren’t alive on account of the blood loss...
- blincoln 4y agoI think it depends on the location. My car was stolen about 15 years ago in Seattle. The block I lived on at the time was a popular place for car thieves to both pick up and drop off cars.[1] When it was recovered, there were a bunch of stolen credit/debit cards and other potential evidence inside. The officer who took the report said I could try calling the detectives who were responsible for that kind of investigation, but he didn't think it would go anywhere, because either the mayor or the chief of police (I don't remember which) had told them to deprioritize car thefts. Sure enough, calls to that line went straight to voicemail, and I couldn't even get a call back telling me they weren't interested. [1] The day I discovered my car was stolen, there was a silver Civic parked across from it in the spot where a neighbour usually parked her silver Civic. That day, it was not hers. It was a nearly-identical silver Civic that the car thieves had ditched before stealing my car.
- simondotau 4y agoIf the lye and ammonia aren’t illegal to possess, they probably can’t take it, and wouldn’t want to even if they could. (Of course I’m sure they noted it as circumstantial evidence in their case against the perpetrators.)
- andrewflnr 4y agoCash is legal to possess, but that doesn't always stop the cops.
- simondotau 4y agoRight, but then it fails the second prong of my criteria.
- 4y ago
- mulmen 4y agoIsn’t it likely the tools are also stolen? Did the police even check the trunk?
- simondotau 4y agoI’m sure that if the toolbag had identification in/on it, the OP would have returned them.
- coldtea 4y agoIt's not like they would care, unless there was some very easy way to tell the owner, like a receipt or something. They ain't gonna store them, or search for the owner... heck, they have tons 100 times more serious cases on hold...
- mulmen 4y agoAs an owner of tools and a former tradesman I can tell you exactly what was stolen out of my tool kit. I would file a report and the police should be able to match that with recovered property.
- coldtea 4y agoThey could, but it's the "caring"/"being on any spot on their priority list" part that's missing
- sbierwagen 4y ago>so it was re-stolen from the place it was dropped off. Note for others: if you're in a jurisdiction that has decriminalized car theft, and you find your stolen car, just get in it, drive home, and tell the police you recovered your own vehicle.
- climb_stealth 4y agoWould you mind elaborating? Why would it not be okay to drive your own car once you find it? Sure you might get stopped by police, but should be able to explain and prove the ownership.
- sbierwagen 4y agoWhy ask me? GP is the one who found the car but had it re-stolen, ask them why they didn't recover it. There was also a recent HN submission where a blog post author used a GPS tracker to find their car but relied on the police instead of recovering it themselves, with predictable results. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30442044 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30442044
- emsixteen 4y ago> a jurisdiction that has decriminalized car theft Is this a thing?
- zdragnar 4y agohttps://www.kare11.com/article/news/local/stolen-van-filled-with-tools-spotted-in-homeless-encampment-police-wont-help/89-3ed6aced-65c0-4558-9dc1-90ba7e994dc3#:~:text=Local%20News-,Frustration%20as%20stolen%20van%20filled%20with%20tools%20spotted%20in%20homeless,the%20encampment%20%22too%20hostile.%22 https://www.kare11.com/article/news/local/stolen-van-filled-... comes to mind, though I seem to recall similar other stories. Between the reactionary changes due to the public perception in the past few years, the defund movement undermining morale and other sundry causes, several major city departments are very understaffed and property crime investigation gets deprioritized pretty quickly. Edit: removed the editorializing paragraph prior to the article. It was largely redundant.
- TylerE 4y agoAirbags aren’t supposed to go off in every crash. They’re primarily intended to provide some protection for unbelted passengers. Thus the original name SRS - “supplemental restraint system”. In you are belted… most crashes you’d prefer it not go off, subjected you to any or all of: Powder burns, hearing damage, major dental destruction.
- climb_stealth 4y agoI think you may have gotten that wrong. Airbags are worse if the seatbelt is not worn. The timing for it firing takes into account that a seatbelt restrains the forward movement of the person. No seatbelt means moving forward quicker which means getting the full brunt of the airbag. Best case whiplash, otherwise a broken neck or similar. At least that is what I have learned and which sounds reasonable.
- bdsa 4y agoI don't think your point and their point are mutually exclusive: - no seatbelt, you want the airbag to catch you (better than no airbag) - with a seatbelt, ideally the airbag doesn't (need to?) go off, but if it is necessary you'll be glad of it
- iggldiggl 4y agoI dimly seem to remember that there might be differing strategies in place in some parts of the world (maybe something like US vs. Europe?): In some places seatbelts aren't assumed in determining the airbag timings, whereas elsewhere the timing and triggering level are optimised based on the assumption that seatbelts are being used.
- mcv 4y agoIf there's blood, I think it's fair to say they should have gone off. I'd have those airbags checked and possibly replaced. > They’re primarily intended to provide some protection for unbelted passengers I don't think they're meant for unbelted passengers; they should be belted first. I once saw a program about the difference between regular airbags and airbags designed to be used without a seatbelt, and the latter were enormous monstrosities that could knock you out. They were determined to be a bad idea. (I wish I knew where I saw this, but it was decades ago and I don't.)
- culebron21 4y agoHonda Civic used to be a no-compromises racing car for consumers in the early 90s. Hard suspension, hard seats. Maybe it had changed since.