Car Drivers...especially female

[Minotaur]

Just thought this might be of interest to you all.
ALL CAR OWNERS AND CAR DRIVERS PLEASE READ Warning!!!!

Be aware of new car-jacking scheme.

You walk across the car park, unlock your car and get inside. Then you lock all your doors, start the engine and shift or put into REVERSE.

You look into the rear-view mirror to back out of your parking space and you notice a piece of paper stuck to the middle of the rearwindow.
So, you shift the gear stick back into park or neutral, unlock your
doors and jump out of your car to remove that paper or whatever it is that is obstructing your view.

When you reach the back of your car that is when the car-jackers

appear out of nowhere, jump into your car and take off!!

Your engine was running, you would have left your purse in the car and they practically mow you down as they speed off in your car.

BE AWARE OF THIS NEW SCHEME THAT IS NOW BEING USED IN
LONDON/MANCHESTER MAKING ITS WAY ACROSS THE COUNTRY!!!!!!!!

Just drive away and remove the paper later! It is stuck to your
window and be thankful that you read this email.

A purse contains all identification, and you certainly do NOT want
someone getting your home address. They already HAVE your keys!!!

JUST BE AWARE AND TAKE CARE IT WILL PROBABLY SOON ARRIVE IN YOUR AREA

Brian Molloy

Detective Constable
Force Intelligence Bureau
Strathclyde Police

[Goblin King]

Damn, that's clever. However I'd be interested to see some stats on this. Sounds like a scare-conspiracy by men to keep women off the road

I'd be surprised that a Detective Constable would use multiple exclamation marks. Where did you get this Minotaur?

[Thrin]

Clever. Though personally I wouldn't leave the keys in the ignition if I got out, due to a fear of locking the keys inside the car

[lollipop]

I wouldn't leave them because I'd be terrified someone would jump in and nick the car!

[Tinkerbell]

Does it only happen to people in automatics

[lollipop]

Lol. I think "put the gear stick into park" would equate to "put the handbrake on"

[Thrin]

lollipop said:

I wouldn't leave them because I'd be terrified someone would jump in and nick the car!

A very good point! *grins*

[Goblin King]

Stick into park? No, wait, this isn't English at all. I seen a few things like this - why do people like sending pretend-official scary missives?

It's a nonsense and a fake.

[lollipop]

Basically with these kind of things, you just read them and take them into account. It doesn't matter whether they're real or fake. Even if they are real (and with most of them, they're not very credible), all you've got to do is watch out.

For example, this one, "don't leave your car running with the keys in when you're not in it" is pretty good advice anyway. We had one in school before (forwarded by our Head of Year!) about guys coming up to you in car parks and asking you to 'try a perfume' which, when you sniffed it, was chloroform. Again, "don't sniff things that random guys offer you" is common sense, even if the story is bullshit.

The general advice I'd offer with these is read them, take them in, but don't bother forwarding them: they're not worth it.