Recent balance of car crime in Joburg amongst people I know: 2 thefts, 3 attempted thefts, 1 attempted carjacking. All in the last couple of months. All cars with Lesotho licence plates. Previously there have been no problems at all. Are car thefts increasing or are they going for easier targets?
I ran a 10k run in Soweto last weekend*. Our group had 5 cars, of which 4 had Lesotho licence plates. One of them got stolen and two (including mine) got broken into and the ignitions broken in an attempt to steal them**.
When I parked, I made a joke about how I would park next to a nicer car than mine – that way mine would be safe. Only the nice car I parked next to had GP licence plates (Gauteng Province, Johannesburg/Pretoria region) so it didn’t get touched.
Car thieves around Johannesburg target cars registered abroad because it is easier to ‘disappear’ them.
The security. The folk at the MTN Expo Centre, from where the race started and finished, said that they had had no security problems last year, so they halved the security this year. What’s more, they used the security they did have to make sure unregistered runners didn’t run. And this on public streets where people live. Great. Sir, you can’t run on this street where you may or may not live today because you didn’t pay us some money.
Loads of cars got stolen (4 or more from just our section of the car park and more would have been discovered after the marathon runners got back), and even more broken into. It was clearly organized.
At the police station, there was a whole mini-community of people who had just finished the race. Almost all of them had non-GP licence plates. Without it being fun, there was a sort of nice camaraderie between all the ‘victims’ waiting at the police station to report the crimes. I’ve never seen such a degree of unitedness amongst South African of all different races and it felt pretty good. United in victimhood.
Whatever, let’s hope a lesson was learnt for the World Cup next year…
Theft relevant car parts. When I ordered the new ignition for my car, I had to proved certified copies of my passport and the car registration, and also showed the affidavit explaining what happened. Apparently I couldn’t even order a new ignition unit without it. A good effort in preventing car theft. Just as well I reported it else I might be driving a car I have to hot-wire to start for a very long time.
On the positive side. I now know how to hot-wire a car.
* In case you are wondering, I crossed the line after 57:16 minutes. I was told I should take off between 3 and 5 mins because it takes a while to reach the start line and then you are running in and out trying to pass people, so I am giving myself a time of 53 minutes.
** According to the police, it is not attempted theft of a motor vehicle unless the car moves from A to B
1 comments:
"...it is not attempted theft of a motor vehicle unless the car moves from A to B".
Surely that would be theft rather than attempted theft?!
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