Be Sure To Lock Your Cachemobile

[+Team GPSaxophone]

We've all been there. The cache is only .15 miles away. it's just a short walk away from our vehicle. Then we realize, it's on the other side of the river/building/forest/etc. You end up being gone for 20 minutes instead of 5. More than enough time for a thief to abscond with the extra cache items you left in the car, or sometimes even the car itself.

 

Be sure to lock your vehicle when you get out. You'd hate to come back to this:

 

 

Then again, just locking your vehicle isn't always enough. If a would-be thief watches you hike away, he can guess at how long you'll be gone. It's a good idea to turn around and look at where you parked just before hiking over the hill, around the corner, etc. Alarms work great, you can usually hear them from a half-mile away. The flashing light on your dash is sometimes a deterrent enough. A would-be thief will move on to an easier target if he sees that your vehicles is protected. Be safe, get an anti-theft system:

 

[+cache_us_if_you_can]

As you can tell from the before and after pictures, wildearth learned his lesson well

[+TeamK-9]

And the moral of this story? Blue bikes are more likely to get stolen by red bikes. Maybe cause they're made by smurfs?

[+Team GPSaxophone]

And the moral of this story?  Blue bikes are more likely to get stolen by red bikes.  Maybe cause they're made by smurfs?

No, sometimes just locking your car isn't enough. You need a theft-deterrent system

Edited May 8, 2004 by Team GPSaxophone

[+cache_us_if_you_can]

And the moral of this story? Blue bikes are more likely to get stolen by red bikes....

Yikes! Bikes steal other bikes?!?

[+woof n lulu]

I think I would tie one of these to the bike

 

[+Cache Viking]

And the moral of this story?  Blue bikes are more likely to get stolen by red bikes.  Maybe cause they're made by smurfs?

No, sometimes just locking your car isn't enough. You need a theft-deterrent system

Like a Trunk Monkey?

Trunk Monkey Theft Deterent

[+Team GPSaxophone]

And the moral of this story?  Blue bikes are more likely to get stolen by red bikes.  Maybe cause they're made by smurfs?

No, sometimes just locking your car isn't enough. You need a theft-deterrent system

Like a Trunk Monkey?

Trunk Monkey Theft Deterent

I noticed it was by Suburban auto group...think they make them for Suburbans too?

[+bons]

The moral of this story is:

 

"Enough locks and the thief will simply slash your front tire instead".

[+cache_us_if_you_can]

The moral of this story is:

 

"Enough locks and the thief will simply slash your front tire instead".

[+PandyBat]

That is so funny! AND so true!

[+hedberg]

I let my wife stay in the car, no-one else wants her, so they keep away from the car

 

No, just joking... And guess who's gonna sleep on the couch tonite?

Edited May 8, 2004 by hedberg

[+Team GPSaxophone]

I let my wife stay in the car, no-one else wants her, so they keep away from the car

 

No, just joking... And guess who's gonna sleep on the couch tonite?

I have a feeling it won't be your wife

[+woof n lulu]

Yeah....and like I tell my husband when he does something to tic me off....

 

Just remember you have to close your eyes to sleep tonight......

[+RuffRidr]

I can't help but notice that in the second picture the front tire is flat! Is this another antitheft measure?

 

Edit: Doh! Someone beat me to it. Next time I'll read the entire thread before responding.

 

--RuffRidr

Edited May 8, 2004 by RuffRidr

[+2qwerqE]

Our car got broken into when we visited this cache north of St Louis:

 

Chain of Rocks Cache log

[+Team GPSaxophone]

Our car got broken into when we visited this cache north of St Louis:

 

Chain of Rocks Cache log

Wow...15 replies so far and yours is the only one that's on-topic

 

Sorry about your cold drive home. I've experienced that before too. Twice!

[+Team Perks]

Our car got broken into when we visited this cache north of St Louis:

 

Chain of Rocks Cache log

Heh...we had to break into our OWN car to get home from a cache once.

[+cache_us_if_you_can]

Our car got broken into when we visited this cache north of St Louis:

 

Chain of Rocks Cache log

Heh...we had to break into our OWN car to get home from a cache once.

Been there, done that... three times. You'd think I'd learn by now, but you know, I'm not the sharpest bag of hammers

[+AmishHacker]

I made a big mistake.......Me and my brother, Ninja Cache, went to Turkey Run State Park for a whole day of caching.......5 hrs later I came back to my truck and saw I left my back sliding window open with my companys LAPTOP in plain sight.......IT WAS STILL THERE...Whew!!!

Edited May 10, 2004 by AmishHacker

[+protocoldroid]

well... this is some bizzare sort of privacy theft while geocaching...

 

was visiting this cache Lost in the Woods (Cache #GCGCGC) see my entry from April 29...

 

My girlfriend and I parked at this smallish town park, as soon as we parked, I got out the PDA and GPS to kind of get my bearings and read the cache page.

 

Just a second later my girlfriend whispers "there's some guy taping us" and I've got my head all in my electronics, and I'm like "taping us?", "yeah, taping us, like with a video camera taping us". He was uncomfortably close to our car, about 8'-10' away.

 

Anyways, I was pretty disturbed. I didn't say anything or make any acknowledgement as we left... aside from making sure the car was locked, and the alarm was on.

 

We came back, about a half hour later, and from a distance, I saw the same guy with a video camera, with some of his friends right up next to our car. He spotted me pretty much right away (must've taken note where i walked out into the woods). Anyways, they really sped off, I couldn't get their tag numbers... if something had been done to the car, but.... Alas, nothing was touched, luckily.

 

Some people just have to be jerks, dubble-ya-tee-eff.

[+briansnat]

Some people do the opposite and remove all valuables and leave the car unlocked...so the windows don't get smashed.

 

Most of the breakins will happen shortly after you leave your car, so the idea to check back shortly after you leave is a good one.

 

There are some other tricks that we.... um, I mean car theives use. One is if the car is occupied by a lone person, they break in on the passenger side, so the breakin isn't noticed, sometimes for a day, or more.

 

Do not leave your wallet in the car. Another trick that theives use is to break in, find your wallet and write down all your credit card info. Then they replace everything the way they found it and you have no idea you were just robbed.

Edited May 10, 2004 by briansnat

[+TheAlabamaRambler]

Most everyone in the South carries a gun, or so the legend goes, so cars unlocked and untouched on the side of the road are common.

 

I never lock my car, but then I don't leave anything attractive in it either. I put anything worth keeping in the trunk.

 

Two thoughts at work here -

If it's locked they'll break in to see what's there, if it's unlocked they'll look around, find nothing and move on.

 

And, while thieves may be dumb they aren't necessarily stupid - they know the owner is somewhere in the surrounding woods, maybe watching, and likely has a gun!

 

I did have a car stolen from my driveway a couple years ago. The cop asked me was it locked and I told him no. He says "Good, then the window won't be broken!"

The point being, if they want it, they'll take it, and the more you secure it the more they'll tear up to get it.

 

Ed

[+The Leprechauns]

Until this topic was posted, I had an unblemished record: nearly 700 cache hunts, and not ONCE have I ever left the cachemobile unlocked.

 

But on Saturday May 8th, I took Little Leprechaun out for some bike trail caching - our first time on the bikes this season. Due to the distraction of removing the bikes from the rack, at the first cache I left the door unlocked. At the third cache, I left the driver's side door wide open in the parking lot. In both cases, everything was fine.

 

Had there been any theft, I'd have blamed Saxman's evil forum topic.

[+DeskJocky]

Do not leave your wallet in the car. Another trick that theives use is to break in, find your wallet and write down all your credit card info. Then they replace everything the way they found it and you have no idea you were just robbed.

Going to the gym to work out? Leave your wallet in the car? Doesn't take long for someone to pick up your keys and walk out to the parking lot to find your car. Keyless entry makes this very easy. Crooks using this trick will usually leave your keys in your car's ignition to trick you into thinking you left them there, mean while they emptied your wallet

[+Melrose Plant]

Some people do the opposite and remove all valuables and leave the car unlocked...so the windows don't get smashed.

I used this anti-theft method for over two years when I lived on the edge of the bad part of town. In over two years, I had a tire pressure gauge stolen. Everyone else in my apartment house had their windows smashed and various parts of their radios stolen. I must add that not only did I have a crappy radio, the installation was very poor as well, and it looked like hell.