I’ve heard stories of people being advised not to install cat protector shields on their car, as often the thief will smash the windows and slash the tyres as payback for inconveniencing them. The leaps in mental logic that must take is astonishing.
People committing catalytic converter theft want to be in and out fast and quiet. They want to hit X vehicles a night. Including multiple in the same street. They often run across vehicles that aren't theft compatible (e.g. parked on a hill, already missing cat/not installed, etc), if they took the time to commit loud and pointless damage that is time they're not using stealing more catalytic converters elsewhere (and increase the chance of being spotted).
Likely someone just had criminal damage committed against them and because they had a cat-shield device installed arbitrarily decided A+B=C.
Here are security camera videos showing how quick and almost professional cat theft is:
- 90 seconds: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93r5PSP2rI4
- 1 minute: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnaUL7d1YBQ
- 1 minute: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwHL-rSV8_M
Slashing tires is hard and smashing windshields is loud.
Position it at a corner of a door window and press until the punch fires. The window just disintegrates into a thousand pieces.
During my first visit, the guy I spent a couple of hours chatting with suggested I never, ever remove the visitor's parking pass from my car - as 'even speed freaks' (in his words) would be reluctant to break into the car of someone on the visitor's service.
While one data point is hardly evidence, there was a number of smash-and-grabs from curb parked cars on my street - my car was indeed untouched. (Which, of course, might as well be because I never ever leave any visible valuables inside...)
Fascinating! I had not head of this before, and if that is in fact what you were involved in, good on ya.
Once the inmate is released, you're not supposed to stay in touch - though in the small town I lived in at the time, you were bound to bump into each other on the street every now and then; when we did, the rule was that the former inmate initiated contact if he'd like to have a coffee or just say hi - after all, it could quickly become awkward if I greeted someone and their company asked where we'd met, for instance.
Most interesting, if nothing else I came to realise that just about anyone could end up doing something which landed them in prison.
(Plus, inmates make for excellent conversation partners - after all, they have all the time in the world to ponder all sorts of things.)
The opposite is the black rat sticker: https://www.bennetts.co.uk/bikesocial/news-and-views/feature...
It should be noted, though, that the Norwegian system is focused heavily on rehabilitation - and that anything which may ease the convict's transition back into civil society is widely seen as a good thing.
Slap this in some social media groups, have some loud guy say it on TikTok video and some fake video of it happening.
A better solution would be to add more surveillance sensors. Unfortunately this drives up the cost for people looking to protect their property.
I had my catalytic converter stolen as a college student, and it was a huge pain in the ass. Not to mention costly at the time to replace.
People from ZA tell me people there actually boobytrap their vehicles[1] and some carry flame throwers when they go on the road. That was a few yeasts ago and not sure if it’s still a thing.