When It’s Your Car or Your Life : Even with the availability of anti-carjacking devices, the best strategy is to hand over your keys.
On average, there were 13 carjackings a day in the city of Los Angeles last year. Some of the most shocking examples of late have occurred in the San Fernando Valley. Such statistics have spawned an industry in the Valley of folks selling devices--often at high cost--that are designed to deter or prevent such assaults. The problem here is that such solutions may lull motorists into a false sense of security. They might also be at odds with a law enforcement maxim that bears repeating: Do not resist when you are the victim of a carjacking.
Supposedly lifelike mannequins for the passenger seat have been touted recently, for example. It should be noted, however, that this has been an old trick employed to help single motorists sneak onto the freeway car pool lanes. For the most part, they haven’t fooled anyone.
Then there is the bullet-resistant glass solution for your car. We note here that bullet resistant hardly means bullet-proof, particularly when large-caliber slugs are involved. Such an option also provides no help if you are assaulted outside of your car, or as you are entering or leaving it. Again, the operative response is to simply not resist.
Other devices are designed to make it impossible for the carjacker to drive away in your vehicle by disabling it. Some use audible warnings that tell the thief that he is about to receive a severe electrical shock. Do you really, however, want the car disabled or abandoned while you are standing in close proximity to it . . . and the carjacker? We ask because law enforcement statistics, such as those provided by the FBI, show that handguns are the weapon of choice among carjackers.
A look at the thinking of the average carjacker may help to illustrate the point. As the Miami office of the National Assn. of Chiefs of Police suggests, criminals now figure that hijacking a car is easier and more profitable that robbing the local convenience store. Also, when you hijack a car, you don’t have to break into it and possibly damage it. You have the keys and registration, and you may even have the wallet of the victim.
Some of the best advice for such situations involves the following: Be very aware of your surroundings, particularly at intersections, and at night. Keep doors and windows locked while driving. In high crime areas, where possible, take freeways rather than surface streets. When on surface streets, try to use the center lanes, not the curb lanes. For an escape route when stopped in traffic, leave enough room to pull away from the car in front without having to shift into reverse. Drive away if suspicious people are present. And if all of that fails, “give them the keys,” says a spokesman for the National Assn. of Chiefs of Police. “It’s not worth your life.”
