Lock Those Doors! or, How To Foil Car Theives in DC

One of my favorite mailing lists, the 3D Substation Mailing list, shared with me a video on the subject of "Vehicle Burglary known as Theft from Auto Crimes" from the "Crime Prevention Series." I eagerly clicked the link, bubbling with anticipation about the helpful information I would receive.



The 52 second video features Cpl. Marcino of the Collier County Sherrif's Office, and a spiffy, upbeat soundtrack. I was hoping for something a little more, er, local, but hey, crime is crime, right? My enthusiasm unabated, I watched on.

In case you don't have the 52 seconds to watch these important tips, I'm going to detail them here for you.

1. Safeguard those belongings before you get to your destination.

What does that mean, exactly? The stern Corporal didn't elaborate. Given that this is Florida, I expect this might include things like:

• Hide your beer in the way-back, or behind the front seats


• Secure all alligators with leather belts or tie-downs, and lock them in the trunk. This will ensure other poachers don't steal them from you.


• Return your rifles to your concealed, seat-back gun rack.

None of these seem particularly applicable to DC, though, so perhaps they just want you to finish snorting the blow off your dashboard.

2. Lock Those Doors!

Sage advice from the earnest Corporal. But I must disagree. Quite the opposite, I have found that "door locking" is one of the best ways to ensure you get a broken window in DC. While the "Talahassee Lock" pictured at left might provide some relief from car thieves (to the extent that in DC, nobody would even bother stealing a car that looked that crappy), not so here.

Quite the opposite, most of us in DC who have been the victims of frequent car break-ins leave their doors unlocked. Since DC car-thieves are notorious for not actually stealing anything, trying to prevent them from getting into your 1992 Toyota Corolla is pretty silly. They're getting in if they feel like it, it's just a question of whether or not you buy a new window after they do.

Not that leaving your doors unlocked guarantees that you won't get a broken window, since many DC car thieves seem to be unfamiliar with the operation of the handle on a car door. But it does increase your chances.

DC advice: Don't lock those doors. Unless you keep a burmese python in your car.

But on the the final piece of advice, the real kicker:

3. Most importantly, roll those windows up.

This is because, as Cpl. Marcino says, "the average thief can take that opportunity to reach right in, and grab your belongings."

Honestly, I am struggling with this one. First of all, it assumes that anyone in DC has any "belongings" in their car. Most of us are so used to having our cars broken into, that we often don't even leave our floormats in the cars.

While rolling up your windows is good advice in terms of keeping rain, raccoons and other wildlife out, it really has no bearing on the ease with which someone will access your belongings. As we established above, in DC, access to your car is only a brick away.

I do recommend following this advice in general, since it will make your car less likely to be the temporary napping spot for a passing homeless person, but it won't help keep your valuables safe.

... and that's it.

Apparently, these important measures are all that is required to remain car-break-in-free in Collier County. Unfortunately, here in DC, they don't cut the mustard. If you want to remain break-in free, simply follow these rules:

• Leave your car empty and unlocked.


• Don't own a Honda Civic or any car newer than 1996.


• Don't ever park in DC.

It's really that simple!

Bad Biker of the Day

You know, this is really altogether too easy, but if this is what it takes to convince people that running red lights on a bike both commonplace and unsafe, then so be it.

On my way back from having my truck inspected (which is worthy of another post, actually, since things have changed down there) I drove about four miles from the Half Street inspection station back home to Columbia Heights. Downtown, a cyclist ran a red light in heavy traffic two cars ahead of me. Naturally, since this was on my mind, I pulled out my camera, ready for the next one.

That didn't take long. Below, joker cutting me off at 13th and Florida.



Once home, I also snapped a picture of one of my neighbors who, for reasons that completely escape me, parks their bike crossways to the sidewalk. It's here often, blocking a good chunk of the sidewalk, and actually sticking into the street.

While I would never dream of purposely hitting their bike while parking, it is certainly an inconvenience to both people parking and pedestrians, and sooner or later someone's going to hit them accidentally. I can't think of any rational reason why they don't just park sideways in the treebox so it doesn't block anything. Or alternatively, in their ample front yard, which features a chain-link fence. Yet every day it's like this.

Another person parks their bike to a light pole on the sidewalk near my house. It's white. I call it the "ghost bike." But they always park parallel to the road, so there's no problem. I like the ghost rider.



One other thought I had related to cyclists who argue that red-light running only endagers themselves.

Though I strongly disagree with that premise in the first place, I assume that you likewise don't think people should adhere to applicable seatbelt and helmet laws?

There are consequences to putting yourself in harm's way that extend beyond your own, apparently not that valuable, life.

Steamed Over Parking Spots

A good blizzard always brings out the best in city folks. Sunday, as many emerged from their snowbound homes for the first time, I saw dozens of my neighbors out and about, shoveling their walks, or their elderly neighbor's walks, and helping people dig their cars out. Everyone was cheerful an enjoying the glorious, sunny post-snow day.

It also brings out the strange. While not a unique phenomenon, in DC, the act of digging your car out of a street spot apparently grants you ownership of it until the snow melts. As quickly as cars started moving out of their snowy prisons and onto the crusty streets, the vacant spots were filled with pylons, lawn chairs, and pleading notes and candy canes. Gotta love the hippies... I'm guessing the lawn chairs were more effective.

My favorite one is below. Monday around noon, I saw this one on Webster Street NW. It cracked me up so I took a picture. If you can't see what's behind the chair in shot #1, proceed to shot #2 for a better view.

Ironing out the parking situation

On my way to work this morning, at 7:15 AM, I was pleased to see that the ironing board was, in fact, an effective way to keep people from stealing your hard-earned spot. I do have to wonder how they will press their shirts for Christmas Eve, though.

Hard pressed to find parking

Hmm... that looks a like a pretty nice dining room chair, too. It's going to be a wrinkly, standing-room-only Christmas dinner, I guess.

As hilarious as this is, it does beg the question. Clearly, someone is willing to go to great lengths to defend their parking spot, nay, their honor against any and all invaders. They have moved much of the contents of their dining room, and laundry room, to the sidewalk in order to ensure parking.

So far, I've observed the spot twice, occupied only by furniture and laundry accessories. No sign of a car, either at noon on Monday, or at 7:15 AM, two days later. In this day and age it seems that parking, even rarely needed parking, is now at least as valuable as your home furnishings.

A ROSA By Any Other Name Smells Just As Bad

While walking the dog recently I saw a note on a car windshield. The note is directed towards "Officer Ward" and implores that the officer stop ticketing her car. The ticket is "Failure To Secure DC Tags" which is a $100 fine, and is issued under the ROSA program.

The victim here has Louisiana tags and said they are attending Catholic University. This car was parked on an unzoned block. There are no parking restrictions. The next morning, there was a ticket on her windshield, shown in the second picture.



ROSA stands for "registration of out of state automobiles." It is one of DC's many anti-visitor polices, and as far as I know, is a form of extortion unique to DC. While many local governments love to extort money from visitors in the form of tolls and speed traps, only in DC do we have a rule that lets the police ticket your cars while they are legally parked.

If a policeman or "meter maid" believes that you are a resident of DC who has not changed their tags, or alternatively is a little short on their quota for the month, they can issue a legally parked car a one hundred dollar ticket, every single day. From DMV's web site:

The Metropolitan Police Department monitors residential areas for the presence of automobiles not in compliance with DC registration requirements. If an automobile has been observed a second time within a thirty-day period, a warning notice may be issued...

After that, it's ticket time.

So basically, this law means that if you do not have DC tags, and you legally park in DC more than once in a one-month period, you can be ticketed. Good luck visiting your boyfriend/girlfriend. Good luck being a regular service provider like a cleaning person. Good luck having friends who live somewhere other than DC (like, say, Maryland or Virginia) who want to visit you more than once a month. Good luck having a job in DC somewhere that has ample street parking, but few or no private parking options -- like at the Bancroft School, and a nursing home, in Mt. Pleasant. Where, ironically, ANC Commissioner Jack McKay tried to set up a registration program for daytime workers to actually pay for monthly permits so they could legally park near the school. Then - suddenly and unceremoniously -- the program, which was about to actually be enacted, was killed.

Apparently, DC's stranglehold on parking -- even in residential areas, during daytime hours only, when there is loads of parking available -- is more important than being able to provide a legal option for people who work in the city.

So, only way to avoid getting insanely expensive tickets when you park your out-of-state vehicle in DC is to obtain a reciprocity permit of which there are a mind-boggling array here. These include special permits for "students, military, and elected officials," "health care provider permit (60 days)," "visitor parking permit for guests (15 days)," and yes, even a "rental car parking permit (15 days)."

I guess "boyfriend/girlfriend" would fall under "visitor permit for guests (15 days)." To obtain one of these, you need:

• The name and address of the resident
  
• The name and address of the visitor using the permit
  
• The license tag number, and issuing state of the visitor's vehicle
  

This is all extraordinarily inconvenient if you have a regular visitor, since you must go in person to a police station to get one every 15 days. I haven't a clue what you are expected to do if you don't happen to have the licence plate number for a guest handy, or if you have more than one guest. Oh yeah, I know what you're supposed to do: cough up the "protection money" to DC when you get the shakedown.

The upshot: If you want to park in DC then you need to prove you don't live here... even if you are parked legally, on an unzoned street, or during hours that parking restrictions do not apply.

Sometimes I am amazed that anyone comes here at all. I love this city. But it's laws like this that make DC seem like Hazzard County, where we're just waiting for Bo and Luke Duke to cross the county line so we can kick out their taillight and then arrest them for driving with a broken taillight.

There is no other place on earth that I am aware of where you can get a parking ticket while parked legally. Maybe that's because most places actually want people to come visit their city and spend their money. Too bad we are so shortsighted that we think extortion makes more economic sense than friendlieness. Someone up there needs to learn that you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.

Parking: It's Just Not That Hard

Today's rant will be on the topic of parking. For most people, it is something that you either learn to do in Driver's Education, or the proper technique is so blindingly obvious that you never even think of it as a skill.

I have complained before about bad drivers. But bad parkers annoy in a way that bad drivers do not. The bad driver makes you curse momentarily as he or she turns abruptly without signalling, or wanders down the road at a snail's pace while applying makeup or reading the newspaper. But soon enough they are just a memory. The bad parker, on the other hand, frustrates completely. They prevent YOU from being able to park, and there's nothing you can do about it. There is little satisfaction in flicking off an empty car.

Today we showcase two of the most irritating kinds of bad parkers. These are not the complete jerks who intentionally take up two parking spaces so that nobody can park near their car. No, those people are a different class of devil. They are fully aware of their actions, they are purposeful. Those people deserve to have their cars keyed.

I am talking about the other kind of bad parkers: the ignorant ones. These are the people who simply don't get it. They think so little about the way they park, that you wonder how they can figure out how to open a can of soda.

Bad parker #1: The Edge Parker.

The parker featured here leaves his car technically in the parking spot, but is so close to the edge of the space that anyone parking next to them will require skills comparable to that of a space shuttle pilot while docking with MIR. The situation pictured here is an especially egregious violation. You can see to the left of the car is a pole in the parking garage. There is a large open space on that side, meaning that one could actually park close to the other side and still be guaranteed plenty of room to open the car door. As an additional benefit to parking that way, no other car can park close enough that you risk door dinging.

But no. Instead, this person chose to squeeze all the way to the other side, ensuring that anyone needing the spot next to them would have to be driving a Mini Cooper, or alternatively be trained in operating a bomb-defusing robot, in order to park in the space and still have enough room to get out of their car.

Bad Parker #2: The Meter Moron



This kind of pest has either just moved to the area from Nome, Alaska, where there are no parking meters, or, more likely, is a complete idiot. They have parked their car directly in front of the meter, effectively consuming two parking spots.

The violation that I've captured here is the worst kind: they are in the end spot. Even if you were born yesterday and have never parked at a meter before, in the wide shot you can see the "No Parking" sign that designates the end of the row of parking. Yet instead of parking as close as possible to the sign, they left a space into which only a Smart Car could fit between themselves and the end of the legal parking.

This street does not have lines delineating the parking spots. But most do, and there is not a single place on earth that positions the meter in the middle of a parking spot. So just because there aren't lines painted on the ground, and an instructional video available on the parking meter to explain how not to be a moron, you think this meter works any differently? Everywhere in the entire civilized world, you park between meters and pay the one at the front of your car. The only exception is those places with the "double meters," but in that case it's even more obvious which one is for you. Apparently, though, if that isn't spelled out to some people, every single place they park, it's a baffling ordeal to figure out where to leave your car.

In some ways, I blame Montgomery County. They could paint the lines to help the mentally deficient. They could also ticket these fools relentlessly for not paying both meters - but they don't. I've watched the meter people callously ticket cars parked correctly, whose meters have just expired, but for some reason let these guys take up two spots without ticketing them.

But much more than Montgomery County, I blame the idiots. For the record, the garage car had Maryland plates, and the meter car had Virginia plates. Just sayin'.

Both of these pictures were taken today at my office building. This is not a rare problem. It is a pestilence.


Update, 11:00 AM: Apparently, Silver Spring is a magnet for the parking impaired. Or perhaps it's just human nature to see something stupid, and follow suit. Basically every car on the street is parked idiotically right now. I love the last one, who I actually watched park between two spots and not even pay for the meter.




Two more meter morons, a third visible across the street.



Fourth meter moron. This one decided to take two spots for the price of zero.

Dude, Where's My Car?

Ah, the suburbs. For much of my life in DC, I have lived in transitional* neighborhoods where we face such issues as crime, poverty, poor schools, and the like. But yet the most noise has always been made about street parking, typically by new residents. Jim Graham's newest "Bill to Protect and Enhance Street Parking" is the latest example of an attempt to regulate a resource that is fundamentally self-regulating. But I'm not here to discuss parking in particular, but rather to tell a story of my experience this morning in the land where parking for residents is guaranteed and parking for non-residents is all but prohibited. Yes, this place is called Alexandria.

I spent the night last night at my gf's place of residence at Seminary Towers at 4701 Kenmore Avenue. This is a pretty big complex which features the following "benefits:"

• Giant parking lot, never full, towing enforced 24 hours
  
• Each resident is issued exactly 5 guest permits per month
  
• The actual road on which the building sits, Kenmore Avenue, is private, meaning you can't park on the street.
  
• The only nearby public street parking is on Van Dorn Street. It's not all that far away, but it's only on one side and is extremely limited.
  
• The nearest Metro station is King Street, which is about 4 miles away, requiring a roughly 20-30 minute bus ride or $15 cab ride.
  
• The 24-hour concierge from whom you must get a parking pass seems to be "out to lunch" (at least that's what the sign says) more often than not
  

I've parked there a bunch of times in the past. Nearly ever time, we've had to go to the neighboring building to get a parking pass because the concierge is away from their desk so often. Last night we planned ahead - let's get the parking pass before we go out to dinner since they're always "out to lunch" (presumably, asleep in the mop closet) late at night.

What happens next is the critical error that resulted in this morning's fun. Against N's advice I did not immediately hang the tag from my rearview mirror because I thought it might blow away on the highway while driving with the windows down. Despite being reminded by her about three times on the way home after dinner, I forgot to hang the permit.

Today, 6:30 AM, car gone.

1. Look at "permit parking only signs." There is no phone number.
2. Go to concierge. Nobody there. Shocker.
3. Call number on "out to lunch" sign for concierge at other building. No answer. Shocker
4. Walk to other building. Concierge not in sight. He comes back after a while and we get information on towing. A1 towing. Driving directions only. Hey thanks!! If I had a car, that would be really f*cking useful, but the only reason I care where A-1 Towing is located is because I don't have my car!! Call cab.
5. Cab delivers us to A-1 towing on Vine Street in Alexandria. My receipt, which curiously does not include their address, says "Excellence in Towing Since 1986." More on that later.

We get to the shady-looking impound lot easily enough, pay the $100, and are directed to the back corner of the lot where we can "drive ourselves out." Car is blocked in by two other vehicles. Awesome. I go back to the desk and they tell me someone will move the cars. While I am back, I overhear the guys in front of me arguing with the towing company. Apparently, they are residents of Seminary Towers for four years. Today is July 1. They were towed because their parking pass expired on June 30. They said that you can't get a new parking pass until the 1st Thursday of every month and they have done this for four years.

Now I don't know if this is true or not, but what the hell? What kind of building would have a policy of towing their own residents, with a parking sticker, at 12:01 on the day after it expires? How about a warning? How about a fine? How about telling the towing company please don't tow our own goddamn residents' cars with actual parking stickers just because they expired one minute ago?

Excellence In Towing

Anyway, after a while the guy starts to pull out the first car, a silver Toyota Highlander with Virginia tags. He seems to have a problem of some kind which requires access to the car, so next thing I know he's working the slim jim. The car alarm starts going. It stops. It starts going again. He finally breaks into the car (is this even legal??) and does whatever he needs to do and pulls the car out.

Wait for it... this gets good. As he's backing the Highlander into another spot so I can get out, it rolls off the wheel-hitch down a hill and crashes into two other cars in the impound lot! Thoughts quickly run through my head. The first one was, I need to go back to the desk right now and negotiate for my $100 back plus another $400 in hush money. Then I realize my car is still blocked in. Whatever action I might take needs to wait until I am free. A-1 Towing is obviously some place where laws do not apply, since I have just seen them break into a car and then crash it into two others. I will probably end up locked in a basement if I make any noise now. Instead I just took the picture here, which shows the tow truck pulling the Highlander from against the blue Corrolla looking thing that it crashed into first.

The operator goes back and hooks the tow truck up to the Highlander again to pull it out of the twisted carnage. This time he takes the additional step of actually strapping the wheels to the tow hitch so it doesn't roll off again. Way to close the stable door after the horse is gone! Apparently he also needs to get inside the cabin of the car again, and didn't bother to leave the door unlocked after his last break-in, because he's at it again with the slim jim and pry bar and the alarm is going off again and again. Whatever happens to me on God's green earth I am never allowing my car to be towed again.

Finally another guy, probably realizing he really doesn't want me continuing to watch this spectacle and take pictures any longer than necessary, comes with another truck and moves the other car blocking me in. One hour after finding my car missing, I am on the road again.

I hope this post serves as a warning to all.

1) Seminary Towers has the most draconian parking policies of anywhere I've ever been. There is virtually no legal public parking anywhere nearby, there are no pay lots, and residents are permitted a total of five one-night guest permits per month. They even tow their own residents' cars the day after their parking permit expires. I really have no idea what people are expected to do with their guests. Good luck having your mom visit for a week.

2) This policy is completely silly because the parking lot has always had plenty of parking available at any given time, including late at night. This is about making money. If you want people to actually continue living there, maybe you should think about not trying to fuck your residents all the time!

3) Apart from the silliness of the policy, there is no reason why anyone would park here OTHER than to visit someone who lives there. There is no shopping, no metro, really nothing else nearby other than Seminary Towers.

4) A-1 Towing: Be Very Afraid. I have no idea what the law is concerning towing companies damaging cars when they are towed due to "illegal parking," but there are going to be some very unhappy people this morning. Are they liable? I can't believe that they aren't liable for allowing cars to roll around their parking lot and crash into each other. But fat chance that they would ever take responsibility for what I saw happen when the victims show up for their previously undamaged cars. Not to mention damage that could occur while breaking in at their whim, or just generally yanking cars out of parking spots when they have their brakes on and are in gear.

Let this be a warning to all you people who bitch about parking in DC. When you make it impossible for anyone without a permit to park, you invite the vampire into your own home. Forgot to renew your RPP permit? Off to the impound lot. Got a visitor? Oh sweet you've got that one visitor permit. That one visitor permit. Good luck having a dinner party. Got a contractor coming by when you aren't home? How about a cleaning person? I guess you could just leave the visitor permit on your front porch all the time...

Let me assure you: it can get a lot worse than it is now.





*PC term for "gentrifying"