Survivorship bias perhaps but kudos to a car lasting 34 years in a marine environment. That is impressive.
Only on Nantucket: The Curious Case of the "Stolen" Mercedes
31–40 of 45 posts
Re: Only on Nantucket: The Curious Case of the "Stolen" Mercedes
#32Nan took it!
Re: Only on Nantucket: The Curious Case of the "Stolen" Mercedes
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
My mom once opened the wrong '89 Dodge Caravan when grocery shopping in the early nineties, and it wasn't until she got in to drive that she realized it wasn't hers. She said the seat was too far back and then she actually stopped to look around. She said she had simply assumed it was hers since the key worked.
wait so the same key will open any car of the same model??? lol
Depends on the manufacturer how many unique bittings would be made. I believe ~1000 was common. So pretty low chance but high enough a few people have stories here or there.
Re: Only on Nantucket: The Curious Case of the "Stolen" Mercedes
#34Leaving keys in expensive cars in areas where everyone drives the same 5 luxury models is oddly common in some areas like Nantucket. It’s really jarring seeing the reminders from police there when you come from somewhere like NYC. Reminder that the US is a blend of high and low trust societies existing in geographical proximity. My parents still leave the door unlocked when they are home, especially if they are expec…
In the Boston suburbs, commuter belt communities just outside 128, it is common for police to send out reminders to people to lock their cars when they’re parked on their driveways whenever there’s a spate of thefts of valuables from parked cars. I assume it’s not restricted to this particular stretch of suburbia. Examples: https://patch.com/massachusetts/weston/weston-pd-remind-resi... https://www.cbsnews.com/boston…
> UX issue.
sometimes it's also an entitled lazy humans issue, that no UX could compensate for.
i see endless people driving current (post 2020 anyway) German cars and Cadillacs holding their iPhones with one hand talking into its low side while driving. It's illegal here in Scottsdale AZ, so I've decided those people are just too lazy to take the 1 minute or so to bluetooth pair their phones, or are the entitled sort who think they are more important than the law. many drive incompetently while on the phone, distracted.
Re: Only on Nantucket: The Curious Case of the "Stolen" Mercedes
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nantucket Island is one of those funny precarious places at risk from climate change. All those rich CEOs and executives with their 2nd homes there, do they care? Do they connect the dots between the externalities of their companies and what they lobby the government for to the fate of that little island?
Why would they care? If it floods they’ll just buy another one.
That’s the essence of financial independence—-having resilience to events that would be catastrophic for a person with less money.
But once people don’t have to care, they tend not to care much at all, and so it seems to reduce empathy as well.
Re: Only on Nantucket: The Curious Case of the "Stolen" Mercedes
#36Leaving keys in expensive cars in areas where everyone drives the same 5 luxury models is oddly common in some areas like Nantucket. It’s really jarring seeing the reminders from police there when you come from somewhere like NYC. Reminder that the US is a blend of high and low trust societies existing in geographical proximity. My parents still leave the door unlocked when they are home, especially if they are expec…
In the Boston suburbs, commuter belt communities just outside 128, it is common for police to send out reminders to people to lock their cars when they’re parked on their driveways whenever there’s a spate of thefts of valuables from parked cars. I assume it’s not restricted to this particular stretch of suburbia. Examples: https://patch.com/massachusetts/weston/weston-pd-remind-resi... https://www.cbsnews.com/boston…
Re: Only on Nantucket: The Curious Case of the "Stolen" Mercedes
#37Leaving keys in expensive cars in areas where everyone drives the same 5 luxury models is oddly common in some areas like Nantucket. It’s really jarring seeing the reminders from police there when you come from somewhere like NYC. Reminder that the US is a blend of high and low trust societies existing in geographical proximity. My parents still leave the door unlocked when they are home, especially if they are expec…
>My parents still leave the door unlocked when they are home,
I live in a small town, not rural but not a "city", and I haven't locked my doors in so long I don't even know where my house keys are.
Re: Only on Nantucket: The Curious Case of the "Stolen" Mercedes
#38Leaving keys in expensive cars in areas where everyone drives the same 5 luxury models is oddly common in some areas like Nantucket. It’s really jarring seeing the reminders from police there when you come from somewhere like NYC. Reminder that the US is a blend of high and low trust societies existing in geographical proximity. My parents still leave the door unlocked when they are home, especially if they are expec…
I’m not saying Nantucket isn’t high trust, but how much of this story is that versus it being futile to steal a car on a small island with a trivially searchable public car ferry?
My family all grew up on a small island, and from what I can tell all the car thefts were very bored kids taking joyrides.
Re: Only on Nantucket: The Curious Case of the "Stolen" Mercedes
#39Leaving keys in expensive cars in areas where everyone drives the same 5 luxury models is oddly common in some areas like Nantucket. It’s really jarring seeing the reminders from police there when you come from somewhere like NYC. Reminder that the US is a blend of high and low trust societies existing in geographical proximity. My parents still leave the door unlocked when they are home, especially if they are expec…
>My parents still leave the door unlocked when they are home, I live in a small town, not rural but not a "city", and I haven't locked my doors in so long I don't even know where my house keys are.
Yeah it is weird, we’ve never really locked our doors as a family either.
Like the extended family I mean.
And we are scattered all over the world in different economic situations and trust levels.
I don’t lock now in a smallish coastal town in Oregon and I didn’t lock when I lived in Houston either.
We often start locking after a reminder but it fades away. We do lock at night time though when we go to bed.
Re: Only on Nantucket: The Curious Case of the "Stolen" Mercedes
#40Leaving keys in expensive cars in areas where everyone drives the same 5 luxury models is oddly common in some areas like Nantucket. It’s really jarring seeing the reminders from police there when you come from somewhere like NYC. Reminder that the US is a blend of high and low trust societies existing in geographical proximity. My parents still leave the door unlocked when they are home, especially if they are expec…
I think high trust/low trust looks at it the wrong way around - the reality is more like low mistrust/high mistrust.
Where I live, people barricade their doors like there are barbarian hordes at the gate. Bars on the windows, clamps and immobilisers on the car. They’re terrified a gypsy/indian/african will fall out of the sky and rob them blind - and they’d have to fall out of the sky as literally everyone here is white and born within the surrounding ten km radius. They all trust their neighbours completely, however.
I also trust my neighbours completely, so I leave my keys in the truck, and I haven’t locked the house in five years. The only time there’s been unauthorised entry is when people have left cherries for me on the driver’s seat.