icme: keys in, car running and NO driver

February 9, 2009 at 9:25 am in Driving, Uncategorized

I ran across this oddity parked next to me Saturday afternoon in Arcadia. I was gob smacked. The keys were in the ignition, the car running. No driver in sight. I scanned all over and couldn’t see anyone else in the lot. As I loaded my car with groceries a hundred options of what I could do or should do ran through my head. My wife was with me and wouldn’t let me check to see if the doors were open and was irritated that I even took a pic with the trusty phone cam. (it does get bigger with a click).

Of course I wouldn’t act on it, but the impulse to move into the cart return corral entered my mind. So did calling the police, but what would they do? The former didn’t happen as I think it might have been considered “grand theft auto” and the latter…I just ran out of time and the car had no plates.

I can’t call it a parking tard as they were completely in the lines. I can truthfully say the last time I saw that was when a friend of mine and I tried to get rid of his gremlin by leaving the keys in, windows down and a “for steal” sign on the dash. (True story and it was a fail).

What would you have done?

5 Comments »

http://www.wildbell.com WILL•I•AM CAMPBELL

Seems rather unlikely but I’m wondering if it might’ve been a bait car.
http://www.myspace.com/suprdave89 David

I’d have moved the car. no doubt. If anything, just to fuck with whoever left it there.
pterostigma

I would have run, screaming, from the vehicle under the illogical assumption that it’s a trap (ie, your unnamed assasin expects you to act on impulse, jump in the car, step on the gas, and then kablooie, kapow, body chunks and car parts are scattered across the concrete). The nefarious face of McDonalds reflected in the passenger window would add to this assumption.
dp

It looks like an early ’90′s Honda Civic CRX. I had the hatchback version. The key, made of soft metal, and after years of use, wouldn’t work in the ignition lock sometimes. I’d spend minutes jiggling the key to make it work, until I found out that using my nearly-brand-new spare solved that problem. Maybe the driver had the same problem and found it easier to just let it idle.

Then again, leaving your full set of keys in the ignition is just plain small town. Maybe they’re part of the small town movement.
http://frazgomeanders.blogspot.com frazgo

dp…Arcadia is suburban LA with all the ills the rest of the metro area has, I’ll take the key theory.

icme: keys in, car running and NO driver

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