If You Don't Want Your Car Stolen, Make It Pink 390
pickens writes "A study in the Netherlands illustrates car thieves' preferences. From 2004-2008, the most commonly colored vehicle stolen was black. This may be because black vehicles look more luxurious. Following close behind black were gray/silver automobiles. Of the 109 pink cars in the study, not one was stolen. A bright and uncommon color, like pink, may be as effective deterrent as an expensive security system. Ben Vollaard, who conducted the research, wrote, 'If the aversion to driving a car in an offbeat color is not too high – or if someone actually enjoys it – then buying deterrence through an uncommon car color may be at least as good a deal as buying deterrence through an expensive car security device.'"
Re:Or you could (Score:3, Interesting)
Right on.
I remember reading about a woman who pulled into her own driveway and was then "carjacked" by two guys that had followed her. But she drove stick, and the theives had no idea how to operate the car. She's rolling around on her lawn laughing her ass off while the two guys kept stalling the car. They eventually fled the scene in the car they had arrived in.
Re:Hm... (Score:3, Interesting)
The only significant difference between Linux and the rest is how you get software. In Linux you get by far most of it from your distribution, on Windows you get most stuff from more or less trustworthy webpages, so it is much easier to catch something evil by accident.
In terms of actual security there really isn't much difference, as neither OS properly isolates applications by default and thus every evil tool has far more permissions then it needs.
Re:Solution to theft (Score:5, Interesting)
I knew this since high school (Score:2, Interesting)
Back in high school, I mostly used mechanical pencils. But I kept breaking them: the metal tips snap off usually within a week of use. Maybe I press down too hard, or they just make shitty pencils where I live.
So I imported from Japan a few very well made--but obviously expensive--mechanical pencils. They have no problem taking my abuse. However, I ended up losing all of them over the course of the semester. I sometimes lend one to a classmate, but I didn't always get it back. I don't think they kept it on purpose, but they simply forgot to return it.
Next semester, I had to import another batch, but I got one in pink. And since then, I only lend out the pink one. I still have most of the pencils I bought then, including the pink one.
You might think that this strategy will only work ~50% of the time, but since I'm posting this on /. you should be able to figure out why I beat the odds.
Pink cigarettes (Score:2, Interesting)
I've always thought that more people would quit smoking, if cigarettes were pink...
Re:Or you could (Score:2, Interesting)
Tell me about it. Sheesh.
I went to France on business a couple of years ago, and the company's French travel agent assumed that, since I was American, of course I wanted "ze very large auto with ze automatique, and you want to be picked up at ze airport, yes?"
After a very long conversation, I got train tickets from Paris to Orleans, a map of the subway system including a few markings where they had rent-a-locker places available for my luggage, and a manual-shift Yaris waiting for me in Orleans (which was an amazingly fun little car that hadn't quite reached the US at the time).
Had a great if initially confusing time riding the Paris subway system to the train station, locked up my bags at a rent-a-locker place, toured Paris on foot/subway for a good chunk of a day, then took the train to Orleans to get my car.
The woman at the train station, after I managed in my poor French to get across who I was, tried to tell me that there was some sort of mistake. The gist of what she was saying was "You are American and this is a small manual car, there must be some horrible mistake. I am very sorry that the car rental agency is closed, they only left me the key, I will call you a cab which we will pay for and the rental agency will have a larger automatic car delivered to your hotel early tomorrow morning." After nearly an hour of stumbling with funny gestures and my poor French (she was incredibly good-natured about my mangling of her language), I was able to tell her that the car was in fact what I had requested, and was told that I was pretty OK, "for an American", and got my key and directions to the car. :)
Damn good thing I got a small car, too. Those streets are NARROW. But most of my travels in Orleans were done on foot anyway. The only thing I needed the car for was to get to work on the outskirts of town.
Re:Hm... (Score:3, Interesting)
Cool car. Shows how progress really isn't and how we're gradually getting poorer physically.
Try sticking a probe up the tailpipe and running an emissions test before you say that. This car was technologically advanced for its day. My 1982 MBZ 300SD is a diesel, probably gets similar emissions overall, and gets 30 mpg. A 1990s Golf TDI gets 50 mpg freeway and has even better emissions. It's not that it's not possible, it's that we're buyin' what they're sellin'.
Re:Sanrio's Next Wave of Products (Score:4, Interesting)
They [twolia.com] are way ahead of you. Outside. [blogspot.com] And inside. [blogger.com]
Re:Hm... (Score:2, Interesting)
Painting my brand new bike with ugly fluorescent colors in combination with a very good lock did the trick for me. The lock can only be cut by a diamond saw used by professional thieves, and they cannot sell the bike anymore for a reasonable price. The amateurs who don't care about the color cannot steal the bike because of the hardened lock. The combination is perfect. See this blog article [olino.org] for the details how I transformed my new bike into a ugly but more thieve resistant bike.
Works on underwear too (Score:5, Interesting)
When my boys were growing up, they were constantly stealing my underwear. I made them do their own laundry but they didn't get to that chore as often as they should have so they felt free, despite my protests, to dip into my underwear drawer. Nothing worked until I died my shorts pink.
My girlfriend thought it was funny but I was just happy to be able to rely on having a clean stash of underwear.
Non-relevant statistics? (Score:3, Interesting)
With a mean probability of 0.1% of theft (at least it looks close to it in the charts, I do not have the study numbers), a sample size of 109 cars may be too small.
To put an analogy, think that a medical researcher goes to a city of 10.000 people and finds that there are 10 cancer patients, and when he goes to the village with 100 people then claims that there is some kind of cancer cure in that village because there are no cancer patients in it.... Hardly significative at all..
Already knew that... (Score:3, Interesting)
I drove for 4-5 years a pink car. It was a type of car likely to be stolen, in an area where cars are being stolen quite frequently, in a visible, big parking area, where practically no one was watching if there's a car being stolen.
Car was easy to steal type, many cars like that even a ice cream stick was enough of a key, on top of that the trunk couldn't be locked so you could get inside from there, and if that's not enough i frequently forgot to lock the doors. It was never stolen, or attempted even.
Not only that, but all the girls were curious about it always ;) It drew eyes like a magnet everytime i drove it around, and girls came talking to me at times just because how the car looked, yet the car had about nothing special in it's looks other than being pink.
Best color for a car, ever.