I don't quite understand why the authorities can't hit these guys in the supply line. Make it impossible to shift a bare catalytic converter by cracking down on scrap merchants who would be buying them.
They’re melted down and the result is pure untraceable metal. Rhodium vendors can’t be common though. What’s the story the fences give? “This is all from my small-scale family rhodium mine”?
Yes the only thing in the way is a huge international lobby industry that pays politicians to turn a blind eye to systemic labour and environmental exploitation.
I haven't looked into it in detail but I would be very surprised if this process was as simple as melting down some stolen lead flashing, surely it isn't the kind of thing you can do with a camping stove and an old pot?
There must be limited facilities with the ability to extract and purify the rhodium content.
>
I don't quite understand why the authorities can't hit these guys in the supply line. Make it impossible to shift a bare catalytic converter by cracking down on scrap merchants who would be buying them.
For the same reason that they don't shut down the pawn shops buying stolen goods right across the street from the payday loan place.
Because it requires actual police work, and because the people running them are 'local businessmen' with pull.
The local metal scrapyards are far too lenient. They don’t bat an eye at someone bringing in stolen air conditioning condensers (they can even be brand new)
You should have to have the tittle for the car to bring a converter in, since it’s a federal offense to remove them.
Then they can show their mechanic's license. There's no reason for Joe off the street to come in with a backpack full of these things. Especially ones that are brand new. Here's 20 stolen from a dealership the other night - https://abc13.com/la-porte-car-dealership-theft-catalytic-co...
Many US states require auto repair businesses to be registered, which would be a reasonable thing to tie back to (if this was a reasonable idea in the first place, which it isn't).
The "Mechanics License" is an informal certification that all reputable technicians in the US employ and is widely recognized. It's a form of de-facto licensure that's easily recognized at a glancing distance, and serves to ensure that a mechanic is not going to leave on a moments notice, without at least bolting a wheel on. Instead, he or she will tell the foreman or whomever's name is on the sign, likely to call a tow truck for Friday.
It goes like this: Once a young apprentice lube tech graduates from Harbor F. University, an unusual ritual occurs in most mechanic's shops where a large, diesel, truck with a lift gate and a Square terminal approaches.
A nondescript individual emerges from the truck, (slowly, as to not alarm anybody who has a pending tab) where our young acolyte is soon taken gingerly by the hand and ushered onto this mysterious conveyance.
Seven or Eight hundred dollars later, the young, oily apprentice emerges holding a shiny, new, silver gun and possibly a ratchet and a t-shirt or pocket protector.
Most seasoned veterans will recognize this as their Mechanic's License. It's good for brake jobs, mostly.
If you foul up to many times in the shop, they call the MAC or Snap-On guy who will gun it in his diesel and demand full payment for the impact tool and ratchet. They usually get to keep the shirt though, because, yuck, you know?
Scrapyards already need licenses (permits). Adding licensing requirements will just result in the people with licenses buying from the thiefs. It's just another middleman in the chain.
If anything it makes the problem worse because scrapyards often do turn away obvious thieves. A mechanic showing up with ten legit converters and forty stolen ones he bought off the thief gives the scrapyard plausible deniability. Furthermore it moves the illicit transaction outside of a legit commercial establishment and to wherever the thief and the mechanic care to meet.
It's already acknowledged that without enforcement against the people who are actually cutting the cats off regulatory requirements just displace the problem and shift the profit around.
Being a mechanic doesn't require a license although running the commercial establishment generally has some permitting requirements.
> Adding licensing requirements will just result in the people with licenses buying from the thiefs.
Lets think about this situation in programming terms. "Fixing this exploit will just result in the people finding another bug to exploit".
Well... yeah. That's the point. You don't necessarily want to stop all crimes (I mean, you do, but that's just unreasonable). Everyone is happy with simple deterrence: making crime harder to do and harder to logically manage.
And you keep fixing the law until the criminals / unwanted behavior is finally fixed. You gotta start somewhere, much like you gotta start fixing code exploits if you want to fix the security in your software.
1) the mess that is DRM, whether for software or media, and
2) to the point of 10-step windows activation (including phone calls and having to reinstall because one version only takes retail keys and another only takes oem keys and another only uses network auth), and
3) video games that try and re-authenticate between every frame of play
And tons of other "fixes" that just punish users and don't really deter bad behavior.
Software is bad enough; we shouldn't need to authenticate our exhaust system before recycling it.
The people that do it as a hobby/side gig probably go through 2-25 cars/yr with the people on the higher end doing more scrapping and less individual part selling.
Yes, we can always dream up some extreme case where somebody would find it onerous. How should we weigh that against a lot of people who are just trying to use their car to get to work having their catalytic converters stolen?
Adding another middleman makes the thefts less efficient and less profitable for the thieves. Sounds like a win to me. Sure, it doesn't stop it completely. So what?
I used to work at an exhaust shop. We sold catalytic converters to a scrap yard (we also had a separate dumpster for scrap metal that they picked up weekly as well). We needed to show receipts for purchased cats that matched what we scrapped, so if we scrapped 50 we needed to show we had sold at least 50. Although the main reason for that was environmental, it was to prevent shops from removing converters and straight piping the vehicle. However, it also did help to prevent theft, although I don't know if the yard checked thoroughly for non-commercial customers.
>You should have to have the tittle for the car to bring a converter in, since it’s a federal offense to remove them.
If my eyes could roll in a complete circle they would.
Nobody who is parting out cars (resulting in a decent number of legitimately owned cats lying around to scrap) is bringing in the title because cheap junk often changes hands without a title and if not you gave the title to the junkyard in order for them to take the bare shell without you cutting it up.
And how is the scrap yard supposed to figure out which cat matches which title?
(the other guy covered the mechanic use case so I won't)
A potentially less bad idea: circulate a list of known stolen catalytic converters by serial number, and encourage scrappers not to buy them/help find who stole them.
I think this is done with bikes in a lot of places.
I don't get it either. I literally had to replace the cat on my car after it started throwing a check engine light. I took the old one to a scrap yard, and the amount of info they asked me for was crazy. They wanted the VIN of the car, all of the car information like make, model, color, etc, then photocopied my ID and kept records of it. This is in Washington, so it may vary by state. You'd think this would be enough, but there's someone who is not asking questions...
So many scrap yards are out of business in our area now too, I don't get where people are taking them to. Maybe people are taking them out of state to where people don't ask questions.
There used to be a local scrap metal yard in Houston that advertised on TV: "We pay in two-dollar bills!" (Translation: We pay cash, which means you can't be traced.) I haven't seen that ad lately, thought.
This happened to me. Twice within a few weeks. Parked in a train commuter lot. I eventually had the mechanic screw some steel mesh to the bottom of my pickup to deter the thieves. Thankfully I kept comprehensive insurance on my vehicle so the out of pocket expense was $50. The insurance company did call to investigate the second time because they thought I was in on it.
You’re obviously a white supremacist and racist. If you are not on the side of defunding the police, you are on the wrong side of history and probably harbor sympathies toward neo-Nazis, if you aren’t already a full blown one yourself. Maybe have some compassion for once in your life, some people NEED to steal catalytic converters because of systemic racism and you should feel bad about wanting to have basic norms of law and order upheld. s/
It is indeed, to all of our detriment in my opinion. Won’t stop the HN downvote brigade from attempting to quickly hide it to avoid having to address it, though.
Edit, original comment below. It’s very interesting, and to me, very telling, that HN seems to reach for censorship quicker than good-faith refutation of the core argument. Which here is simply that we have in fact lost the ability to enforce law in many areas, with a post hoc layer of rationalization bolted on, here stated sarcastically and labeled explicitly as such so as not to be interpreted in bad faith. Maybe someone could take the argument at its strongest and refute it? Naah, just flag it.
You’re obviously a white supremacist and racist. If you are not on the side of defunding the police, you are on the wrong side of history and probably harbor sympathies toward neo-Nazis, if you aren’t already a full blown one yourself. Maybe have some compassion for once in your life, some people NEED to steal catalytic converters because of systemic racism and you should feel bad about wanting to have basic norms of law and order upheld. s/
You're making a mockery of the talking points about defunding the police, then asking people to actually spend time debating you. Please, reconsider the way you argue about things.
If you want to defund the police, how can you possibly prioritize catalytic converter theft, a non-violent crime? Aren’t non-violent crimes what are being de-prioritized?
No, I'm not in favour of abolishing the police. Let me preface with saying that I'm not American, nor I live in the US, also, so this doesn't affect me.
Once again, I'm not in favour of abolishing the police. As I said in my previous message, I'm in favour of reducing the expense on police and instead investing it on social programs.
As I'm not in favour of abolishing, I won't argue your second point.
There are plenty of poorer cities where the police have been involuntarily "defunded" by NYC or SF funding standards and they don't have the rampant petty crime that many west coast cities seem to.
Defunding the police isn't the problem. IMO a stretched thin PD is a well behaved PD. The problem seems to be related to all the policy baggage that comes with the "defund the police" crowd.
> There are plenty of poorer cities where the police have been involuntarily "defunded" by NYC or SF funding standards and they don't have the rampant petty crime that many west coast cities seem to.
The thing is: where there are a lot of juicy targets (e.g. tourists), there will automatically be more petty crimes. As a robber you'll have more profit going around and snatching airpods or phones from a ride in the NYC subway than from walking around in some shoddy 'hood in a flyover state.
> Defunding the police isn't the problem. IMO a stretched thin PD is a well behaved PD.
Actually not, because a "stretched thin" force is more likely to shoot first or otherwise use excessive force to get a suspect under control and ask questions later than to use de-escalative tactics which require extensive training (in Germany cop training is a three year thing for exactly that reason vs. the average 21 weeks in the US). If you want police to approach sensitive stuff like domestic violence or rape in an appropriate manner, the officers will need to have both the training and the time for doing so.
> The problem seems to be related to all the policy baggage that comes with the "defund the police" crowd.
And what "policy baggage" is that? To require a social worker to come with and eventually be leading the response to a domestic violence call isn't baggage, it's the whole point of the thing.
What you posted is not an "argument", just flamewar, and you've broken probably most of the site guidelines in just this thread alone. Please don't create accounts to do that with.
Plenty of users have posted substantive comments on both sides of this issue. The idea that "HN" is out to get you because of your views is puerile when you're violating the rules so flagrantly.
Easy to install shields like this one from catshield https://catshield.com/ can be a somewhat effective deterrent given the thieves have to be able to remove it quickly without making noise.
Also hybrids are more targeted for cat theft because they have more of the metals than normal cars to compensate for frequent engine stops and starts from cold.
Grinding metal makes noise and attracts attention. It's not a solution rather a deterrent to make it harder for the thieves to get to the cat without special tools.
Our catalytic converter was stolen a few months ago. It was strange because we were parked in front of a government building -- library and courthouse -- and were only inside for about 15 minutes, in the afternoon. Came outside and the car sounded like the muffler was missing, or like I was driving an old tank.
Our new car came with installation of a catshield. When talking to various autobody places, they were skeptical it would matter because if they'd cut out the catalytic converter, they could just cut out the shield. It would be nice to see if they had data on this, but I haven't seen any (I even asked our insurance agency if they knew of any analyses on it but they said they didn't).
The thiefs like to be in and out very quickly for obvious reasons. Without the shield it's a couple minutes. If they jack it up and there's a shield, that's going to take 15 minutes, they'll likely just abandon it as the risk/reward isn't there.
Unless you're saying all thieves are NASCAR level skilled jackmans - I don't see how it is not a deterrent. Sure some maybe but if most aren't it still slows them down and adds noise.
It is indeed a huge pain in the ass to chop out exhaust components behind anything at all. Cutting tools are all speed and no torque.
If you use stainless or something it will really piss them off. Aluminum will deform, frustrating cutting attempts. Mesh will block access just as easily, maybe go for a stainless mesh so its really annoying to cut through and bank the weight reduction/cooling benefits.
If you use a grinder, the abrasion will take a lot longer as you have to clear both spots where you would like to cut.
If you use a sawzall aka reciprocating saw, the blade has to have totally clear movements or else it will flex and slow down.
If you use a torch it goes quicker, but the set up and hauling the tanks is not easy, torches are fiddly, especially if not properly maintained, the smoke is poison, and theres fuel lines down there to boot.
Unpleasant. They'll just curse and roll onto the next mark.
What's is considered a permanent part of a vehicle?
It seems like there are some people etching the VIN on the heat shield but I don't see any evidence of that deterring thefts.
I mean “permanent” in a general sense. It varies by manufacturer. For most common cars, manufacturers put the VIN on a few places on the frame of the vehicle.
Cat theft would be a $200 problem ($50 for the cat, $150 for someone to put it in there) on the order of a cracked windshield instead of a $2k problem if CARB would pull its head out of it's butt and stop caring about what cat you put on what as long as it sniffs within spec at the tailpipe.
I'm not condoning theft but CA state policy is a large part of why this issue hurts as bad as it does.
But aside, would you really be okay going back to the days of photochemical smog choking away your sunlight and skyrocketing rates of asthma and acid rain dissolving your ancestor's gravestones??
Federal law requires the catalytic converters. Everyone is definitely better off for them.
Around here they're ~1hr of shop labor plus the cost of the cat (the latter being like $50 for an aftermarket cat up to a few hundred for an OEM cat (though there's a few vehicles with oddly expensive ones) with the 50-state cats always costing an integer multiple more.
>But aside, would you really be okay going back to the days of photochemical smog choking away your sunlight and skyrocketing rates of asthma and acid rain dissolving your ancestor's gravestones??
What part about "sniffs withing spec at the tailpipe" was unclear?
$150 cat? I don't buy it. It costs $50 to turn the welder on for cheapy aftermarket units that fail fast, the clamp type arent compatible for most exhausts and cats are more that $50 even for older vehicles. Recent models can be hundreds of dollars on parts wholesalers. Your mechanic will charge list price.
I don't think so, but I'm open to be educated about a $50 fifty state downstream catalytic converter.
Cali cats are often more $ but, where in the USA is there a $50 catalyst? More over, which shop charges less then $100/hr labor?
The down stream cat cleans up the photosmog producing tailpipe emissions.
California learned how horrible the smog is, we knew about the causes almost a hundred years ago. Letting people install mystery cats, possibly made from real cats, is going back to the era of "west side story"
I read the post as indicating that specific models of cat are required by car, but that what really matters are the specs, creating artificial complexity.
Don’t know how true that is, or what the effect on price would be, but your reply didn’t seem to fit with how I understood the post.
Sorry about that, I probably glossed over some domain knowledge that I took for granted. It is complicated, to put it simply.
California certifies the cats so that they ensure they are created well enough to last a while. They don't want a cat installed that works for a couple of days, just long enough to pass the smog dyno test and then who cares. It's probably excessive, but the smog was so bad, I can't help but empathize.
You can totally do that janky work and it will "sniff within spec at the tailpipe". Soon, the substrate melts in the cat because your check engine light throws P0125 next week because your car is in open loop from your coolant temp sensor malfunctioning and you are too cheap to go fix because the emissions check isn't for 3 months. It's just the engine coolant temp sensor, that doesn't cause global warming, right?
People want to get cheap cats because they don't see the value proposition in driving the photochemical smog towards zero, or they misunderstand the difference between the emissions check (ECU monitors provide this) and the smog check (the standalone dyno "moving road" load test) or mischaracterize all this "bullshit" to be about "funding" and "global warming" which they are motivated to reason is fake or whatever.
For further information, acquire California's CARB cert document CALIFORNIA EVALUATION PROCEDURES FOR NEW AFTERMARKET CATALYTIC CONVERTERS[0]
Peruse (e)(3) also sections (A) and (B) to learn of the age requirements. They require of cats that they work for 5 years.
Sections (e)(4), (A) (B) and (C) describes how they should function including fuel economy considerations (appreciated, given prices) and how they must be securely installed in order to prevent failures during the time period.
(e)(5)(A) and (B) outlines the procedure for ensuring they function into the required life of the device. They require the cat to be aged until they cause the MIL (check engine light) in order to verify the quality.
This is hardly affectatious testing. But hypothetically, if you were really hurting, I'd mail you a 50-state cat and then sleep at night.
If the Cat is worth $200 to a thief because of all the precious metals in it, how can a cheapo cat cost only $50?
The cheapo cat doesn't have many precious metals in, and barely is doing its job. The sniff test done at the annual inspection doesn't typically test for all types of gas. So probably the cheapo one might 'pass the test' but still be far from meeting the law.
Either that or the makers of cheapo knock-off catalytic converters have some amazing R&D that even the OEM's can't figure out...
> But aside, would you really be okay going back to the days of photochemical smog choking away your sunlight and skyrocketing rates of asthma and acid rain dissolving your ancestor's gravestones??
You're missing the point: new CA-legal catalytic converters cost 200-400% the price of 49-state legal ones because of the CARB certification. Most vendors won't even ship a new 49-state cat to a CA address, and selling used ones is technically illegal.
This isn't about cat vs. no cat. It's about CA creating a lucrative black market while simultaneously strictly requiring cats be kept in good working order via regular smog checks.
If the smog checks are worth a damn it shouldn't be necessary to certify the catalysts; if the cat isn't working, the vehicle should fail its regular smog test.
CA is fundraising here, and it's no doubt a contributing factor in catalyst theft within the state.
200-400% hasn't been my experience, but I'll give you maybe they should expand carb nationwide to increase the demand side of the curve, lowering costs overall.
>if the cat isn't working, the vehicle should fail its regular smog test.
The vehicle ECU monitors the exhaust composition before and after the first catalyst. Downstream, the performance is not monitored by the computer. afiak the ECU doesn't have the capability to monitor nox and hydrocarons directly. The reason for this is that a cheap, reliable oxygen sensor is employed for monitoring.
Maybe it's possible to add that regulation federally.
> 200-400% hasn't been my experience, but I'll give you maybe they should expand carb nationwide to increase the demand side of the curve, lowering costs overall.
> The vehicle ECU monitors the exhaust composition before and after the first catalyst. Downstream, the performance is not monitored by the computer. afiak the ECU doesn't have the capability to monitor nox and hydrocarons directly. The reason for this is that a cheap, reliable oxygen sensor is employed for monitoring.
I don't see what any of this has to do with smog tests, and it's not even accurate for all vehicles (pre obd2 has just a single narrow band o2 sensor before the cat) but this is completely off-topic. The tests shouldn't rely on the vehicle's systems for measuring emissions, it just creates more opportunities for fuckery.
CA smog tests use their own emissions monitoring equipment and have already employed rolling roads to put the vehicles through varying loads during the test.
I gotcha, it's. 1994-97 miata and there aren't a lot of cats left. Such is the life of a classic car owner.
>I don't see what any of this has to do with smog tests, and it's not even accurate for all vehicles (pre obd2 has just a single narrow band o2 sensor
You mentioned the smog tests, saying if the vehicle can't measure them they aren't worth a damn
>If the smog checks are worth a damn it shouldn't be necessary to certify the catalysts; if the cat isn't working, the vehicle should fail its regular smog test.
Thats why it is not off-topic.
No cars monitor for the smog gasses. That's why Cali uses a special sniffer and a dyno to run a load test. In order to accomplish their stated goal of reducing pbotochemical smog, they must employ a dyno to test under load to monitor the production of nox and hydrocarbons out the tail pipe.
The oxygen sensors pre-obd2 were never used in any state for emissions, In my state we did a 2 speed idle test on a dyno which is being retired currently as all required vehicles are now exempt from this test.
We still are running oxygen sensors for engine management in every car. They do not sense any smog gasses.
the "49-state legal" one is empty inside, its a legal scam. Works because those 49 states dont actually test for CO, HC or NOx. They merely use ODB computer checking for
- check engine light
- fault codes
- readiness monitors
its a legislative joke.
In EU even a 20 year old bmw e36 cat still goes for ~$1K, because we actually test emissions.
The cheap ones are less resilient as you noticed. When hydrocarbons (such as from blowby or imperfectly metered fuel) hit the substrate it works against the catalyst chemistry and the catalyst produces combustion clearing it up. But this skyrockets the temperatures, damages or melts the substrate reducing its effectiveness using up the substrate. There is a lot of expansion and contraction in a 1000-degree cat, failing ones can double that, so the poor bonding techniques will turn it into a rattle can fast.
Thin walls, less substrate, and poor bonding lead them to fail prematurely.
We wouldn't necessarily have to go back to that. We would be worse off without them [0], but Honda could get even GM's 5.7L V8 engine to pass regulations without a catalytic converter [1] in the mid-seventies. Eventually they couldn't get their CVCC engines to pass emissions without a cat, but we could make it back to the late seventies / early eighties. And that assumes we have made zero progress in engineering and material science over the last four decades, which strikes me as unlikely.
In our market we don’t have CARB but an OEM cat for a Mazda Rx8 retails at £1300. An aftermarket like for like is £800 (there are cheaper “race” cats but its a different product with less of the expensive precious metals inside).
Edit: a fairer example would be a ford focus - one of the most popular cars in the uk. £200 aftermarket main cat, £70 aftermarket pre-cat.
That was kind of like hitting the lottery for us,” said Sacramento County Sheriff’s Detective Tom McCue, who led a multi-agency task force on the case.
Glad they busted up a theft ring but this sounds like a moral hazard, assuming they’re keeping the money.
> these guys will just pivot to breaking up packs and selling cells or whatever
I'm sure electric cars are being, and will continue to be, stolen, parted out, etc. But battery theft won't look quite like catalytic converter theft as batteries are much heavier and aren't as easily accessible. Check out the video of a catalytic converter theft posted by another commenter in this thread [0]. The thief slides under the SUV at the 1:37 mark, does some cutting from about 2:00-2:14, then slides out with his prize around 2:24. In and out in less than a minute - no need to jack up the vehicle (SUVs and trucks are often already high enough), no need to enter the vehicle. And the catalytic converter weighs something like 10 pounds so he can just walk away with it. Stealing an 800-pound battery pack out of a Tesla would be a much more involved operation.
My boss has a video of someone jacking up his Model 3 and sliding underneath (thankfully leaving with nothing). I guess thieves aren’t always the brightest bulbs.
It's things like this that make it such a shock to go to an extremely safe country / area. All the little scripts one has to keep track of to be "safe and secure" in the US (e.g. instinctively locking your doors all the way to learning that you can't park in SF to take your girlfriend to lunch on your way to drop her off at the airport because a big suitcase is a target for these rampant smash-and-grabs; unfortunately I had to learn this one the hard way) seem absurd if the whole society functions well.
Figuring out how to park on a hill to deter cat theft, buy security nuts for wheels to avoid wheel theft, using special security nuts for one's bike parts to avoid bike component theft (not to mention having to find indoor bike parking because brazen daylight bike theft just seems to be tolerated now) are the sort of tricks one learns to adapt to, but when you visit a place like Japan, Singapore, or Norway, all of this stuff makes you realize how dystopic things have gotten in the US.
Not saying that no country is without flaws, but the little "quality of life hacks" one must do to be safe in the US don't make up for things descending as far into chaos as they have.
Petty theft patterns in states that have passed ballot measures or counties that have taken executive actions reducing the penalties on petty theft to the point where the ROI is positive even if you get regularly caught should not be taken as indicative of the entire country.
I live in a city that most of HN would turn up their nose at. It's nothing like what people from the west coast describe as the status quo there. And it's not some city in a red state that spends big bucks on law and order either.
Yeah my parents moved from LA in california to rural Washington. People told them a kinds of things including that they wouldn't feel welcome .. we are brown skinned and they immigrated here. This area is deep red
The city they moved to is hours from am airport. Smack dab nowhere.
They didn't find it dangerous at all. To the contrary people there were extremely welcoming ... Very neighborly. They could leave their door unlocked and not be bothered.
The occasional (and I mean occasional) theft was big news and the guy was caught
Far cry from getting our house vandalized with gang graffiti
Having lived in several west coast cities, is largely a west coast phenomenon and policies enacted by these local governments. SF, Portland, LA, Seattle, etc. all have roots in common thread of policies (reducing or eliminating penalties for crime, dysfunctional governments, housing crisis, reduction in police funding, etc).
And when you call the Police they just show up so that you can file a police report for your insurance and record-keeping. The more candid officers will tell you not to expect anything from "the investigation".
Maybe it's your definition of 'extremely safe' areas?
I don't own security nuts, or special locks for my bike, or have ever had my home/car broken into despite not even knowing where my house key is at this point and never locking my car.
I don't understand the comparison to the other countries, either. Are you saying they don't have petty crime?
Ah I should be more specific: urban areas in those countries. The level of petty crime in any major city in the US is far higher than any city in those countries I mentioned.
In non-urban areas in the US things are better for sure, but you still have to deal with other things like having complete asshole neighbors that you really can't do anything about because small quality of life crimes like partying every night with loud music is not a crime.
If you move to rural areas this goes down even further, but then you give up a lot of amenities.
I dunno. Staying in an Airbnb in Seoul, I woke at ~1am to someone banging on my door and yelling for about five minutes. Pretty sure if it weren't locked, I'd be in some sort of trouble.
From another angle, I've been to a restaurant in a central part of Seoul where the owner kept his cash in a wooden box with no lock by the entrance. Pretty sure anyone could have grabbed that box and ran out the door, especially when the owner is in the back preparing the food.
This is a really awfully broad generalization. Crime in SF, NY, Chicago, Boston, LA or Houston are all vastly different situations. Even with shootings up a ton this past year, NYC is still safer per capita than places like Savannah. SF seems to have gotten very out of control, though. Fwiw, I would never leave my car unlocked anywhere, but I also wouldn't feel weird about leaving a bag out. And there is a ton of pick pocketing and petty theft in places like Barcelona, Lisbon, Rome and Paris. Big cities require some attentiveness.
The size of the city isn't the issue here. There is definately a correlation between size and crime, but that's not the real issue - what it is I don't know though.
I live in a mid-sized European capital (bigger than Lisbon), and it's one of the safest places I've ever lived. I could probably leave my car running, with an expensive camera on the dash, while going to get a coffee, and everything would still be there when I get back.
Compare this to some Italian cities I've been to - which are smaller - where I feel lucky all four wheels are still there when getting back (locking wheel nuts are easy to break btw). I lived in Rome for a while and if you left something that even looked like it could contain valuables on show, you'd come back to a broken window.
I really doubt that. If we focus in particular on bike theft (one of the examples above), some webpage says that Norway had 60k bike thefts in 2004, 20k of which was reported to the police[1]. This is out of a population of 4.5 million. Some other page says that in New York City, there are 75k bikes stolen per year with 15k reported to the police[2]. This is out of a population of 8.4 million.
So all of Norway (rural and urban areas together) had a higher per-capita rate of bike theft than New York City (which is all urban).
Aren't you forgetting to include the percentage of population that owns/uses a bike? Hey but links to statistics are cool, makes you sound super smart dunnit?
Now to make things interesting, want to adjust this for per capita bike ownership or usage? Otherwise this is could just be picking places favorable to the point you want to make?
Just for the record, this is happening in sleepy suburban areas also, like Palo Alto. People report CC thefts regularly on NextDoor, and urge neighbors to retrofit their Priuses so they don't fall prey as well.
Locked bikes are stolen in broad daylight in front of grocery stores and at schools. It's probably not as bad as SF, but it is still an issue in the suburbs.
It is a shame that all of the “Culture and Diversity” is so prone to stealing catalytic converters in the middle of the night. That is really cool that you can get Ethiopian food at 2AM, but I don’t like all of the things that come with it.
What do you mean by that? By culture and diversity I meant the hubbub of the city, with a ton going on and all types of stores, bars, and restaurants but the way it's phrased in your comment sounds a lot more pointed and not at all what I meant.
Irvine is notable for it's sterility and being family friendly and clean. While it's safe (mostly) to walk around late at night, there's nowhere to walk. All of it is basically office park style landscaping mandated by HOA's and beige houses. The majority of businesses are chains. The selection of restaurants is not remarkable for california.
I garner a _lot_ of downvotes every time I mention that the US in many locales shares more in common with a third world country than a first world country. So many people seem addicted to the notion of US cultural superiority because their jobs pay the most. Go on YouTube or Google street view and see for yourself.
Yeah the "highest salaries = best country!" trend is strong on HN, but high salaries can't really buy you the things you get basically for free in a different country due to culture / government differences. Turns out you can buy a lot of infrastructure and social welfare programs with all the tax revenue not spent on $100 rolls of toilet paper and bombs for secret wars halfway around the world cuz "freedumb!".
Even when people point out how those "other countries" may tax you like crazy (which is only half true), the amount of time wealth you get back is significant, e.g. grade-school kids commonly commute to and from school by public transit where I live now (although sometimes with a chaperone if they're too young) and women go running at night in the relatively unlit park near my house, which I never saw where I lived in the US (even in relatively safe burbs). You also don't really have to own a gigantic money-sucking vehicle that you have to worry about insuring, parking, damaging, etc, in most European cities either.
I occasionally saw signs that said "nothing of value" on car windows near where I lived, but I always figured the thieves would assume that's what someone who kept stuff in their car would post. Did you get broken into a lot?
That kind of advise was par for course living in Amsterdam Zuidoost, as well as travelling around Berlin, Madrid, Santiago.... I'd say it applies to being anywhere with a significant crime rate or poverty burden
For a low car you would need to jack it up to get to the catalytic converter. Shouldn't do that on a hill as the car could fall off the jack. Usually you only hear about pickup trucks or larger vehicles getting their cats stolen as you can get under more easily.
I remember seeing what looked like basically every city in the San Joaquin Valley seemed unusually highly ranked on a per-capita car theft list of US cities (e.g. Bakersfield, Stockton, Merced, Modesto), and further north into the Sacramento Valley (Redding, Yuba, Chico).
Is it just sort of size effects of California, or is there something like systemic cat theft that is a particular thing? The major cities are also there, but the crazy part to me was it is basically like, the entire central valley.
This has become enough of an issue here in the Seattle metro area that the King County prosecutor's office has a special taskforce, in conjunction with several neighboring jurisdictions. It happens in the city, the suburbs, and even at busy trailheads.
It's particularly concerning because some folks are beginning to take matters into their own hands[1].
What do I expect people to do? Not drag people behind a truck over a car part. What, you think that’s reasonable? Or is it just the shooting that you don’t find to be over the top?
Taking things into their own hands is literally all that is left, unless you are a pacifist. I never made any statement about how people should take it into their own hands or what degree was acceptable or over what. Nor did I say anything about shootings being acceptable. So take your straw man out of here.
What would you do is if somebody was taking $1500 of yours along with your ability to provide for yourself for several days while your vehicle is out of commission?
(Or is it only when the government does that through civil asset forfeiture that you have a problem with it? Two can play at this game, you know.)
No straw man, it was in the referenced article, which one might assume to be the context of your comment. But if you’re just making a random, out-of-context statement, you’ll have to allow that others are keeping up with the conversation.
Seems like a reasonable response from someone who sleeps in their car and likely can't afford to replace the part being stolen. And every news article of someone being shot or crushed as the jack fails makes it a little less likely someone else will try it.
Ideally the police would crack down hard on theft to prevent individuals needing to deal with it.
Had both my catalytic converters stolen off my E250 in Vancouver Canada, parked in the backyard of a mates house.
Frustrating because the van wasn’t worth replacing them. But surprisingly it was legal to replace them with straight pipe. Obviously ethically dubious, due to increased emissions. But a better option that scraping the vehicle prematurely and purchasing a new one.
Either way. I’d be looking at the demand side. The thieves aren’t melting them down, they’re flogging them for cash. Who’s paying cash for clearly hastily sawn off catalytic converters in bulk?
154 comments
[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 186 ms ] threadI suspect with Catalytic Converter thefts, the CATs are small enough and light enough to be shipped abroad
They were eventually caught with container loads of cat's on their way to Europe.
And then you sell it to an actual rhodium mine who just so happens to be particularly productive that month.
Surely its easier to keep an eye on all rhodium mines, rather than trying to keep an eye on all scrap metal yards.
There must be limited facilities with the ability to extract and purify the rhodium content.
For the same reason that they don't shut down the pawn shops buying stolen goods right across the street from the payday loan place.
Because it requires actual police work, and because the people running them are 'local businessmen' with pull.
You should have to have the tittle for the car to bring a converter in, since it’s a federal offense to remove them.
The same reason they scrap the mountains of other used non-working parts they generate.
The "Mechanics License" is an informal certification that all reputable technicians in the US employ and is widely recognized. It's a form of de-facto licensure that's easily recognized at a glancing distance, and serves to ensure that a mechanic is not going to leave on a moments notice, without at least bolting a wheel on. Instead, he or she will tell the foreman or whomever's name is on the sign, likely to call a tow truck for Friday.
It goes like this: Once a young apprentice lube tech graduates from Harbor F. University, an unusual ritual occurs in most mechanic's shops where a large, diesel, truck with a lift gate and a Square terminal approaches.
A nondescript individual emerges from the truck, (slowly, as to not alarm anybody who has a pending tab) where our young acolyte is soon taken gingerly by the hand and ushered onto this mysterious conveyance.
Seven or Eight hundred dollars later, the young, oily apprentice emerges holding a shiny, new, silver gun and possibly a ratchet and a t-shirt or pocket protector.
Most seasoned veterans will recognize this as their Mechanic's License. It's good for brake jobs, mostly.
If you foul up to many times in the shop, they call the MAC or Snap-On guy who will gun it in his diesel and demand full payment for the impact tool and ratchet. They usually get to keep the shirt though, because, yuck, you know?
Scrapyards already need licenses (permits). Adding licensing requirements will just result in the people with licenses buying from the thiefs. It's just another middleman in the chain.
If anything it makes the problem worse because scrapyards often do turn away obvious thieves. A mechanic showing up with ten legit converters and forty stolen ones he bought off the thief gives the scrapyard plausible deniability. Furthermore it moves the illicit transaction outside of a legit commercial establishment and to wherever the thief and the mechanic care to meet.
It's already acknowledged that without enforcement against the people who are actually cutting the cats off regulatory requirements just displace the problem and shift the profit around.
Being a mechanic doesn't require a license although running the commercial establishment generally has some permitting requirements.
Lets think about this situation in programming terms. "Fixing this exploit will just result in the people finding another bug to exploit".
Well... yeah. That's the point. You don't necessarily want to stop all crimes (I mean, you do, but that's just unreasonable). Everyone is happy with simple deterrence: making crime harder to do and harder to logically manage.
And you keep fixing the law until the criminals / unwanted behavior is finally fixed. You gotta start somewhere, much like you gotta start fixing code exploits if you want to fix the security in your software.
1) the mess that is DRM, whether for software or media, and
2) to the point of 10-step windows activation (including phone calls and having to reinstall because one version only takes retail keys and another only takes oem keys and another only uses network auth), and
3) video games that try and re-authenticate between every frame of play
And tons of other "fixes" that just punish users and don't really deter bad behavior.
Software is bad enough; we shouldn't need to authenticate our exhaust system before recycling it.
The answer is mitigated risk via insurance and prevention, not a preemptive policing of all privately owned items of value.
I am quite skeptical that this is true.
If my eyes could roll in a complete circle they would.
Nobody who is parting out cars (resulting in a decent number of legitimately owned cats lying around to scrap) is bringing in the title because cheap junk often changes hands without a title and if not you gave the title to the junkyard in order for them to take the bare shell without you cutting it up.
And how is the scrap yard supposed to figure out which cat matches which title?
(the other guy covered the mechanic use case so I won't)
I think this is done with bikes in a lot of places.
So many scrap yards are out of business in our area now too, I don't get where people are taking them to. Maybe people are taking them out of state to where people don't ask questions.
Hopefully the claim doesn't cause your premiums to increase in a meaningful way at renewal time.
Two theft claims won't raise his premiums.
The other two thousand thefts in the general vicinity will.
Edit, original comment below. It’s very interesting, and to me, very telling, that HN seems to reach for censorship quicker than good-faith refutation of the core argument. Which here is simply that we have in fact lost the ability to enforce law in many areas, with a post hoc layer of rationalization bolted on, here stated sarcastically and labeled explicitly as such so as not to be interpreted in bad faith. Maybe someone could take the argument at its strongest and refute it? Naah, just flag it.
You’re obviously a white supremacist and racist. If you are not on the side of defunding the police, you are on the wrong side of history and probably harbor sympathies toward neo-Nazis, if you aren’t already a full blown one yourself. Maybe have some compassion for once in your life, some people NEED to steal catalytic converters because of systemic racism and you should feel bad about wanting to have basic norms of law and order upheld. s/
Once again, I'm not in favour of abolishing the police. As I said in my previous message, I'm in favour of reducing the expense on police and instead investing it on social programs.
As I'm not in favour of abolishing, I won't argue your second point.
There are plenty of poorer cities where the police have been involuntarily "defunded" by NYC or SF funding standards and they don't have the rampant petty crime that many west coast cities seem to.
Defunding the police isn't the problem. IMO a stretched thin PD is a well behaved PD. The problem seems to be related to all the policy baggage that comes with the "defund the police" crowd.
The thing is: where there are a lot of juicy targets (e.g. tourists), there will automatically be more petty crimes. As a robber you'll have more profit going around and snatching airpods or phones from a ride in the NYC subway than from walking around in some shoddy 'hood in a flyover state.
> Defunding the police isn't the problem. IMO a stretched thin PD is a well behaved PD.
Actually not, because a "stretched thin" force is more likely to shoot first or otherwise use excessive force to get a suspect under control and ask questions later than to use de-escalative tactics which require extensive training (in Germany cop training is a three year thing for exactly that reason vs. the average 21 weeks in the US). If you want police to approach sensitive stuff like domestic violence or rape in an appropriate manner, the officers will need to have both the training and the time for doing so.
> The problem seems to be related to all the policy baggage that comes with the "defund the police" crowd.
And what "policy baggage" is that? To require a social worker to come with and eventually be leading the response to a domestic violence call isn't baggage, it's the whole point of the thing.
a.k.a. please don't feed the trolls
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Plenty of users have posted substantive comments on both sides of this issue. The idea that "HN" is out to get you because of your views is puerile when you're violating the rules so flagrantly.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Also hybrids are more targeted for cat theft because they have more of the metals than normal cars to compensate for frequent engine stops and starts from cold.
Our new car came with installation of a catshield. When talking to various autobody places, they were skeptical it would matter because if they'd cut out the catalytic converter, they could just cut out the shield. It would be nice to see if they had data on this, but I haven't seen any (I even asked our insurance agency if they knew of any analyses on it but they said they didn't).
If you use stainless or something it will really piss them off. Aluminum will deform, frustrating cutting attempts. Mesh will block access just as easily, maybe go for a stainless mesh so its really annoying to cut through and bank the weight reduction/cooling benefits.
If you use a grinder, the abrasion will take a lot longer as you have to clear both spots where you would like to cut.
If you use a sawzall aka reciprocating saw, the blade has to have totally clear movements or else it will flex and slow down.
If you use a torch it goes quicker, but the set up and hauling the tanks is not easy, torches are fiddly, especially if not properly maintained, the smoke is poison, and theres fuel lines down there to boot.
Unpleasant. They'll just curse and roll onto the next mark.
I'm not condoning theft but CA state policy is a large part of why this issue hurts as bad as it does.
But aside, would you really be okay going back to the days of photochemical smog choking away your sunlight and skyrocketing rates of asthma and acid rain dissolving your ancestor's gravestones??
Federal law requires the catalytic converters. Everyone is definitely better off for them.
Around here they're ~1hr of shop labor plus the cost of the cat (the latter being like $50 for an aftermarket cat up to a few hundred for an OEM cat (though there's a few vehicles with oddly expensive ones) with the 50-state cats always costing an integer multiple more.
>But aside, would you really be okay going back to the days of photochemical smog choking away your sunlight and skyrocketing rates of asthma and acid rain dissolving your ancestor's gravestones??
What part about "sniffs withing spec at the tailpipe" was unclear?
https://www.walkerexhaust.com/products/light-vehicle/catalyt...
It won't sniff within spec at the tailpipe without the catalyst.
> what cat you put on what as long as it sniffs within spec
Cali cats are often more $ but, where in the USA is there a $50 catalyst? More over, which shop charges less then $100/hr labor?
The down stream cat cleans up the photosmog producing tailpipe emissions.
California learned how horrible the smog is, we knew about the causes almost a hundred years ago. Letting people install mystery cats, possibly made from real cats, is going back to the era of "west side story"
Don’t know how true that is, or what the effect on price would be, but your reply didn’t seem to fit with how I understood the post.
California certifies the cats so that they ensure they are created well enough to last a while. They don't want a cat installed that works for a couple of days, just long enough to pass the smog dyno test and then who cares. It's probably excessive, but the smog was so bad, I can't help but empathize.
You can totally do that janky work and it will "sniff within spec at the tailpipe". Soon, the substrate melts in the cat because your check engine light throws P0125 next week because your car is in open loop from your coolant temp sensor malfunctioning and you are too cheap to go fix because the emissions check isn't for 3 months. It's just the engine coolant temp sensor, that doesn't cause global warming, right?
People want to get cheap cats because they don't see the value proposition in driving the photochemical smog towards zero, or they misunderstand the difference between the emissions check (ECU monitors provide this) and the smog check (the standalone dyno "moving road" load test) or mischaracterize all this "bullshit" to be about "funding" and "global warming" which they are motivated to reason is fake or whatever.
For further information, acquire California's CARB cert document CALIFORNIA EVALUATION PROCEDURES FOR NEW AFTERMARKET CATALYTIC CONVERTERS[0]
Peruse (e)(3) also sections (A) and (B) to learn of the age requirements. They require of cats that they work for 5 years.
Sections (e)(4), (A) (B) and (C) describes how they should function including fuel economy considerations (appreciated, given prices) and how they must be securely installed in order to prevent failures during the time period.
(e)(5)(A) and (B) outlines the procedure for ensuring they function into the required life of the device. They require the cat to be aged until they cause the MIL (check engine light) in order to verify the quality.
This is hardly affectatious testing. But hypothetically, if you were really hurting, I'd mail you a 50-state cat and then sleep at night.
[0] - PROCEDURES: https://ww3.arb.ca.gov/msprog/aftermktcat/amcat_proc_2017.pd...
The cheapo cat doesn't have many precious metals in, and barely is doing its job. The sniff test done at the annual inspection doesn't typically test for all types of gas. So probably the cheapo one might 'pass the test' but still be far from meeting the law.
Either that or the makers of cheapo knock-off catalytic converters have some amazing R&D that even the OEM's can't figure out...
You're missing the point: new CA-legal catalytic converters cost 200-400% the price of 49-state legal ones because of the CARB certification. Most vendors won't even ship a new 49-state cat to a CA address, and selling used ones is technically illegal.
This isn't about cat vs. no cat. It's about CA creating a lucrative black market while simultaneously strictly requiring cats be kept in good working order via regular smog checks.
If the smog checks are worth a damn it shouldn't be necessary to certify the catalysts; if the cat isn't working, the vehicle should fail its regular smog test.
CA is fundraising here, and it's no doubt a contributing factor in catalyst theft within the state.
>if the cat isn't working, the vehicle should fail its regular smog test.
The vehicle ECU monitors the exhaust composition before and after the first catalyst. Downstream, the performance is not monitored by the computer. afiak the ECU doesn't have the capability to monitor nox and hydrocarons directly. The reason for this is that a cheap, reliable oxygen sensor is employed for monitoring.
Maybe it's possible to add that regulation federally.
49-state legal, direct-fit: $118 https://www.ebay.com/itm/253120020746
CA-legal, universal: $776 https://www.ebay.com/itm/304044103436
CA-legal direct-fit: $1048 (!) https://www.ebay.com/itm/174087409201
> The vehicle ECU monitors the exhaust composition before and after the first catalyst. Downstream, the performance is not monitored by the computer. afiak the ECU doesn't have the capability to monitor nox and hydrocarons directly. The reason for this is that a cheap, reliable oxygen sensor is employed for monitoring.
I don't see what any of this has to do with smog tests, and it's not even accurate for all vehicles (pre obd2 has just a single narrow band o2 sensor before the cat) but this is completely off-topic. The tests shouldn't rely on the vehicle's systems for measuring emissions, it just creates more opportunities for fuckery.
CA smog tests use their own emissions monitoring equipment and have already employed rolling roads to put the vehicles through varying loads during the test.
>I don't see what any of this has to do with smog tests, and it's not even accurate for all vehicles (pre obd2 has just a single narrow band o2 sensor
You mentioned the smog tests, saying if the vehicle can't measure them they aren't worth a damn
>If the smog checks are worth a damn it shouldn't be necessary to certify the catalysts; if the cat isn't working, the vehicle should fail its regular smog test.
Thats why it is not off-topic.
No cars monitor for the smog gasses. That's why Cali uses a special sniffer and a dyno to run a load test. In order to accomplish their stated goal of reducing pbotochemical smog, they must employ a dyno to test under load to monitor the production of nox and hydrocarbons out the tail pipe.
The oxygen sensors pre-obd2 were never used in any state for emissions, In my state we did a 2 speed idle test on a dyno which is being retired currently as all required vehicles are now exempt from this test.
We still are running oxygen sensors for engine management in every car. They do not sense any smog gasses.
- check engine light
- fault codes
- readiness monitors
its a legislative joke.
In EU even a 20 year old bmw e36 cat still goes for ~$1K, because we actually test emissions.
I bought that ebay cat last year after my cat was destroyed in a U-joint failure when the prop shaft impacted it at speed.
It is not empty, and the car passes a CA sniffer test with flying colors using it.
It is pretty cheaply constructed though, thin walls, and the ID seemed a bit smaller than stock so not great for power.
The cheap ones are less resilient as you noticed. When hydrocarbons (such as from blowby or imperfectly metered fuel) hit the substrate it works against the catalyst chemistry and the catalyst produces combustion clearing it up. But this skyrockets the temperatures, damages or melts the substrate reducing its effectiveness using up the substrate. There is a lot of expansion and contraction in a 1000-degree cat, failing ones can double that, so the poor bonding techniques will turn it into a rattle can fast.
Thin walls, less substrate, and poor bonding lead them to fail prematurely.
Good luck.
[0] https://www.designnews.com/stub/we-make-it-simple-how-honda-...
[1] https://jalopnik.com/when-honda-gave-gm-one-of-historys-most...
However, the first article mentions leaded gas as its upside, which is abhorrent, causing me to literally tremble in fear.
I'll restrain myself from any analysis as I'm unfamiliar with this technology. Very interesting, thank you.
Edit: a fairer example would be a ford focus - one of the most popular cars in the uk. £200 aftermarket main cat, £70 aftermarket pre-cat.
Glad they busted up a theft ring but this sounds like a moral hazard, assuming they’re keeping the money.
EV battery packs are certainly serial numbered and traceable, but these guys will just pivot to breaking up packs and selling cells or whatever.
I'm sure electric cars are being, and will continue to be, stolen, parted out, etc. But battery theft won't look quite like catalytic converter theft as batteries are much heavier and aren't as easily accessible. Check out the video of a catalytic converter theft posted by another commenter in this thread [0]. The thief slides under the SUV at the 1:37 mark, does some cutting from about 2:00-2:14, then slides out with his prize around 2:24. In and out in less than a minute - no need to jack up the vehicle (SUVs and trucks are often already high enough), no need to enter the vehicle. And the catalytic converter weighs something like 10 pounds so he can just walk away with it. Stealing an 800-pound battery pack out of a Tesla would be a much more involved operation.
0: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EP3N4RwHd5k
Figuring out how to park on a hill to deter cat theft, buy security nuts for wheels to avoid wheel theft, using special security nuts for one's bike parts to avoid bike component theft (not to mention having to find indoor bike parking because brazen daylight bike theft just seems to be tolerated now) are the sort of tricks one learns to adapt to, but when you visit a place like Japan, Singapore, or Norway, all of this stuff makes you realize how dystopic things have gotten in the US.
Not saying that no country is without flaws, but the little "quality of life hacks" one must do to be safe in the US don't make up for things descending as far into chaos as they have.
I live in a city that most of HN would turn up their nose at. It's nothing like what people from the west coast describe as the status quo there. And it's not some city in a red state that spends big bucks on law and order either.
The city they moved to is hours from am airport. Smack dab nowhere.
They didn't find it dangerous at all. To the contrary people there were extremely welcoming ... Very neighborly. They could leave their door unlocked and not be bothered.
The occasional (and I mean occasional) theft was big news and the guy was caught
Far cry from getting our house vandalized with gang graffiti
> In 2017 Portland ranked third. Now it has dropped to 66th out of 80: https://www.economist.com/united-states/2021/06/12/portland-...
I don't own security nuts, or special locks for my bike, or have ever had my home/car broken into despite not even knowing where my house key is at this point and never locking my car.
I don't understand the comparison to the other countries, either. Are you saying they don't have petty crime?
In non-urban areas in the US things are better for sure, but you still have to deal with other things like having complete asshole neighbors that you really can't do anything about because small quality of life crimes like partying every night with loud music is not a crime.
If you move to rural areas this goes down even further, but then you give up a lot of amenities.
The size of the city isn't the issue here. There is definately a correlation between size and crime, but that's not the real issue - what it is I don't know though.
I live in a mid-sized European capital (bigger than Lisbon), and it's one of the safest places I've ever lived. I could probably leave my car running, with an expensive camera on the dash, while going to get a coffee, and everything would still be there when I get back.
Compare this to some Italian cities I've been to - which are smaller - where I feel lucky all four wheels are still there when getting back (locking wheel nuts are easy to break btw). I lived in Rome for a while and if you left something that even looked like it could contain valuables on show, you'd come back to a broken window.
So all of Norway (rural and urban areas together) had a higher per-capita rate of bike theft than New York City (which is all urban).
[1] http://www.sykkeltyveri.no/bicycle_theft.html [2] https://www.bicyclehabitat.com/articles/security-pg80.htm
Locked bikes are stolen in broad daylight in front of grocery stores and at schools. It's probably not as bad as SF, but it is still an issue in the suburbs.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1MveHv1lTVBzdM5VYZkcBQ/vid...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opo3OuUae5w
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UNvEcR_jM8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otwgkeJyuSo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKutkXy1Eeo
Even when people point out how those "other countries" may tax you like crazy (which is only half true), the amount of time wealth you get back is significant, e.g. grade-school kids commonly commute to and from school by public transit where I live now (although sometimes with a chaperone if they're too young) and women go running at night in the relatively unlit park near my house, which I never saw where I lived in the US (even in relatively safe burbs). You also don't really have to own a gigantic money-sucking vehicle that you have to worry about insuring, parking, damaging, etc, in most European cities either.
https://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/
One of the reasons I decided to sell that car was the daily anxiety of it getting broken into.
Hardly unique to the US
Buy a bike worth less than the lock.
The nice thing is that when that bike inevitably breaks, the city's underworld provides an efficient and free bike disposal service
Can you explain this one?
https://youtu.be/EP3N4RwHd5k
Is it just sort of size effects of California, or is there something like systemic cat theft that is a particular thing? The major cities are also there, but the crazy part to me was it is basically like, the entire central valley.
It's particularly concerning because some folks are beginning to take matters into their own hands[1].
1. https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/crime/man-accused-...
What would you do is if somebody was taking $1500 of yours along with your ability to provide for yourself for several days while your vehicle is out of commission?
(Or is it only when the government does that through civil asset forfeiture that you have a problem with it? Two can play at this game, you know.)
Remember, “call the police” isn’t an option.
No straw man, it was in the referenced article, which one might assume to be the context of your comment. But if you’re just making a random, out-of-context statement, you’ll have to allow that others are keeping up with the conversation.
Ideally the police would crack down hard on theft to prevent individuals needing to deal with it.
Frustrating because the van wasn’t worth replacing them. But surprisingly it was legal to replace them with straight pipe. Obviously ethically dubious, due to increased emissions. But a better option that scraping the vehicle prematurely and purchasing a new one.
Either way. I’d be looking at the demand side. The thieves aren’t melting them down, they’re flogging them for cash. Who’s paying cash for clearly hastily sawn off catalytic converters in bulk?