[carthick1000]

Came across this article about a camera gear being stolen from a car waiting in traffic.

Real estate photographers Ben Barghabany and Mahsa Tighi of HomeShots experienced a photographer's worst nightmare, having their gear stolen. The pair of photographers were sitting in traffic in San Francisco when, in broad daylight, a robber smashed their back window and grabbed a bag of equipment.

Barghabany and Tighi, who work together as husband and wife, had been on a shoot near Dolores Park on Friday afternoon. ABC7 reports that after leaving the park, the pair were waiting to get on the Interstate 80 onramp.

At around 4:30 p.m., a Honda Accord drove up next to the Ben and Mahsa's Toyota Prius as it slowly crept in traffic. A passenger on the Honda's driver's side exited the vehicle, quickly went up to the Prius, and smashed the rear window to grab the equipment bag from the trunk. Bag in hand, the thief rushed back to the getaway vehicle, and the Honda Accord sped off down the road.

A silver lining for the pair of photographers is that at least the crime was caught on camera. The crime, which only took about 10 seconds, was recorded by a camera in the vehicle behind Barghabany and Tighi. The witness, Alex, drives a Tesla with a built-in dashboard camera, TeslaCam. Alex pulled over to exchange contact information with the victims. You can view the incident, as recorded by Alex's TeslaCam, below.

It's not clear if the gear was insured, but the pair have taken to GoFundMe to try to get their business quickly back up and running. So far, nearly 130 generous people have donated a total of $4,300 to Ben and Mahsa, which nearly reaches the $4,500 donation goal.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2efwceQ_0c

Technology's bad : A car as getaway medium
Technology's good: Another car with dashcam (in this case a Tesla) to capture the events as it unfolded and a website like gofundme
Society's bad: No matter you park or drive, there are criminals out there. They find innovative ways to steal.
Society's good:: The good hearted fellow human beings who already exceeded the target gofundme campaign (By time of this posting 7700+USD collected for a goal of 4500USD)

[clevermax]

Originally Posted by carthick1000

Technology's good: Another car with dashcam (in this case a Tesla) to capture the events as it unfolded

I could play this part in a similar but minor incident. My dashcam caught this accident happening. I thought it would be good to stop by and give the footage to the driver of the car that got hit - so I pulled over for a minute, asked his number, told him that I have a video proof of the accident and that I will send it to him.

That day evening, he sent me a thank you note which also said that the issue was settled and that the video helped.

https://youtu.be/lWZDKEQAV6U

[V.Narayan]

Thank you for this most thought provoking thread. Given the broad title I'm not limiting my thoughts to street experiences. The topic is certainly apt for our times and for the last 125 years behind and probably a long time into the future. Generally speaking I'm for technology. But unfortunately it gets used as much for wrong as it does for right though we end up with the impression that wrong dominates. Where humanity as a whole has collectively failed is to not harness and fund the use of technology to solve the biggest most daunting problems of our age - (i) hunger, (ii) lack of water and basic sanitation, (iii) pollution control including the damage caused by plastics & all sorts of packaging, (iv) school education for all and population control and now the big one - climate change.

But then on the other hand technology in the form of the smart phone has done more to empower the bottom 70% of India's population and make things inclusive for them than almost all the other efforts over 74 years put together.

[Rajeevraj]

Maybe off topic, but I am surprised to see that it is so easy to break open the rear windscreen of a Prius. Seemed to cave like cardboard. Looks like the thieves knew it too.

Like everything, technology is a double edge sword, can be used for the best of things as well as for things that are unimaginable to most people and it is the adaptive nature of human beings as a race that helps bring out the best and worst of anything thrown at us.

[VKumar]

Indeed a thought provoking thread, and I would like to show something to the fellow members, my cars have the shades on the rear windows and even third row windows, like these ones:

Reason, one failed robbery attempt in 2017. The guys broke the glass in no time, but due to the presence of a good samaritan, who was all alone, but still questioned the guys that why they broke the glass of the car, the thieves immediately sat on their motorcycle and left. It was my fault to have left the laptop bag on the seat itself. Now I keep that under my front passenger seat, or in the boot, but not in the rear seat, even with shades in place.


Technology's bad : They had something with which they broke the glass, they didn't need to hit the glass hard too. Neither there was a loud thud, nor they took time, it all happened hardly within 5 seconds of them coming near to the glass, after having checked that there is a laptop bag inside. Also, they had a nice 225 cc motorcycle with a self start, one guy ready with engine ON and 1 for stealing.

Technology's good: The CCTV camera was quite far, and not in the way of the thieves either. But it still saved the guard from the ire of the building owner.

Society's bad: Even the guard and the humble guy, who confronted the thieves, they shouted and ran behind, but nobody tried to block the way of motorcycle. In fact why will anybody? There are risks associated to it.

Society's good: The good Samaritan (Mr. Ashish), who was parking his car, he could have ignored and left. But as soon as he saw the car window being broken and them taking the bag out, he shouted loudly, ran towards them and got hold of the bag. There was a risk of violence and maybe even getting shot (It's Meerut after all), but in the face of his courage, the thieves left the bag and immediately fled on their motorcycle.

Originally Posted by clevermax

are they installed for the purpose of hiding what's kept within the car, if someone peeps inside with shady intentions?

This is precisely the reason, not letting anyone to peek inside and check what's lying in the backseat.

[clevermax]

Originally Posted by VKumar

Indeed a thought provoking thread, and I would like to show something to the fellow members, my cars have the shades on the rear windows and even third row windows, like these ones:

How does these prevent an attempted robbery? If the guy can break glass, then getting past the shades is very easy, correct?

Or, are they installed for the purpose of hiding what's kept within the car, if someone peeps inside with shady intentions?

[GTO]

Nice thread - thanks for sharing!

If you're carrying expensive gear, the safest place for it is in the boot! Out of sight = out of mind . No thief is the wiser as to what you are carrying, and no one can break a window (or distract you into opening the door) to steal your stuff. I don't even keep a laptop bag in the cabin...it's always in the boot only. Hatchback? Boot as well. You get parcel trays for the cheapest of hatchbacks to cover up the boot.

[landcruiser123]

Although the kind of incident which I hope never happens to anyone, I'm glas there's some relief for the victims.

I guess the point some posts are missing is: The victims were probably followed. And in such a situation, I don't think there's much they could have done.

Originally Posted by carthick1000

Society's bad: No matter you park or drive, there are criminals out there. They find innovative ways to steal.

What scares me is that this happened in an area I've driven through a few times and isn't really known for crime unlike other spots in the US.

There are many socio-economic reasons behind crime and the disturbing events happening in the USA. I believe such crime is also on the rise in India.

Originally Posted by Rajeevraj

Maybe off topic, but I am surprised to see that it is so easy to break open the rear windscreen of a Prius.

Honesly, the rear windscreen of most cars is not made with laminated glass. They can be easily broken with a strong arm + brass knuckles.

[splitinfinitive]

San Francisco is a nightmare for car related crimes. My brother lives downtown, and after 5 smash and grab thefts in his parked car over the last 2 years, has sold his car and gained some peace of mind.

Interestingly, came across this in the NYT today: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/09/c...ter-theft.html

Catalytic converters, with the increase in prices of precious metals like palladium and rhodium, are increasingly a target. They are relatively easy to steal because they are easy to identity and saw off in a couple of minutes.

[TrackDay]

Robbers in a 2020 Honda accord set out to rob an old gen Prius ? What has happened to San Francisco ?

I do feel this is pre-planned too. How else, did they trail that particular car and know it had valuables in the rear ? Not to just avoid robbery, but leaving such valuables in the rear can also damage them if they are subject to parking in the hot sun.

[MoTo_meister]

Originally Posted by clevermax

I could play this part in a similar but minor incident. My dashcam caught this accident happening. I thought it would be good to stop by and give the footage to the driver

I can chip in with somewhat similar inputs here:

https://youtu.be/pvH7nReON1o

I was driving to the hills, a couple of weeks ago and my dashcam caught this accident. An Aggarwal Packers and Movers (APML) tractor-trailer was carrying a JCB on its bed when it and a Crysta brushed past each other. The (presumable) owner, who was in the co-driver seat, immediately got down and started howling at the truck driver, while creating a massive traffic jam on the single-carriageway. I got down and asked the truck driver to move ahead and stop at a location where there's no hindrance to the traffic, so he did.

We pulled over after a kilometer or two when I got back to the truck driver, asked him for his phone number and told him that I have a dashcam in my car and it has recorded the whole incident. He (the truck driver) seem perturbed, naturally so, because as is with any accident in India, galti hamesha badi gaadi waale ki hoti hai (translated: it's always the bigger vehicle's fault) and all the other people who saw the incident sided with the Crysta owner, not realising that the trucker:

a) Has the right of way since he was going up-hill, and
b) Has a much bigger vehicle with equally big blindspots to match!

As soon as I reached my destination, I offloaded the video from the dashcam and sent it to the truck driver. He saw the message within a couple of minutes; didn't reply though (even truck drivers are leaving me on read these days )



Translation:
1. Brother, here's the video of your accident
2. If the police asks for it, you can show them this

I could only hope that the video saved him from harassment by the police, his supervisors or any other parties involved and if it did, then technology played its part!

OT: I couldn't really figure out what the Crysta driver was trying to do as he left a sizeable amount of space (almost a foot and a half) from the guardrail:

[manchandap]

Originally Posted by GTO

Nice thread - thanks for sharing!

If you're carrying expensive gear, the safest place for it is in the boot! Out of sight = out of mind . No thief is the wiser as to what you are carrying, and no one can break a window (or distract you into opening the door) to steal your stuff. I don't even keep a laptop bag in the cabin...it's always in the boot only. Hatchback? Boot as well. You get parcel trays for the cheapest of hatchbacks to cover up the boot.

Good Idea. Would also add that we should make sure that no one is prying while we are securing our belongings. Lock of boot is also easy to break open. My ex-colleagues faced this situation when they placed their laptop bag in boot in full public view.

[clevermax]

Originally Posted by MoTo_meister

OT: I couldn't really figure out what the Crysta driver was trying to do as he left a sizeable amount of space (almost a foot and a half) from the guardrail:

Glad that you helped the truck guy! Most probably, the Innova was driven by a noob driver. Some drivers drive cars as if they are driving a much wider body truck, leaving a lot of space on the left side of their vehicle for nothing! Some of them adapt and improve their driving over time, and some don't. They always drive cars as if they are driving a lorry.

[jeygani]

Originally Posted by MoTo_meister

I can chip in with somewhat similar inputs here:

OT: I couldn't really figure out what the Crysta driver was trying to do as he left a sizeable amount of space (almost a foot and a half) from the guardrail:

Thanks for taking time out and sharing the video to the truck driver.

OT:
From the video it seems that the Innova stopped there after seeing the truck.
The truck had some space on left as well but it kept moving straight and stopped after brushing against the Innova.
Correct me if I'm wrong or did I miss anything?

[MoTo_meister]

Originally Posted by clevermax

Most probably, the Innova was driven by a noob driver.

Originally Posted by jeygani

From the video it seems that the Innova stopped there after seeing the truck.
The truck had some space on left as well but it kept moving straight and stopped after brushing against the Innova.

but, as BHPian clevermax stated above, the Innova did seem to be driven by a novice, especially considering the fact that the trailer hit the Innova at the very end as the Innova guy yielded and the trucker was able to clear most of his truck when (from what I can deduce) the Innova rolled back into the trailer; observe the steering angle of the car in the picture that I posted above.

Secondly, if you see the dascham video, at the 0:04 mark you can see an 'under construction' sign and quite a lot of debris (of sharp stones and rocks) on the left side of the road, so why would the trucker drive at the extreme edge and risk damaging his load or worse, have a puncture in the middle of the single-carriageway while going up-hill!

I assume that the Innova guy got intimidated upon seeing the truck, stopped to let the truck pass, tried to give him more space by turning the steering to the complete left but stalled (it was a pre-BS6 2.4V) and rolled back into the truck? Your guess is as good as mine.

Now, lets not deviate further from the topic and let other members share the good (and bad) of technology and the society!