What would happen if you left your car unlocked?

[TinnedPearsForPudding]

Just wondering really...because I discovered my husband hadn't locked our car and it had been in the car park adjacent to our flats unlocked for 3 days and no harm done. Phew. Quite impressive I think bearing in mind we live in relatively central London (zone 2) and on a local authority estate.

Made me wonder...what would happen on your street if you left your car unlocked?

Nothing usually although my husband left a packet of loo roll on the seat today when he came in the house so I would have expected that to be stolen locked or unlocked!

Luckily nothing so far.

I seem to forget to lock it at least once a week. I am making a conscious effort to remember.

I can't believe there are so many people live in places where they can just leave their car and house doors open. How nice that must be. Where I used to live you couldn't even leave a window open unless you were in the same room.

Nothing...we live rurally, cars are park next to the garage and the gate is shut every night. We’d hear anyone who came up the road. And the dogs would alert us.

Our oil would be stolen before our cars.

Nothing the locks on our car don’t work, it is never locked

It sends me a text.

My car doesn't lock either and hasn't for a long time. The last time I took it into the garage for an MOT they said it would probably cost £200 to fix the locking system and I bought the car for £400 a couple of years ago.

I have had the boot rifled through though a few months ago and my cloth shopping bags were taken and an old pair of trainers which was annoying.

Car is never locked, key is kept in the cup holder. My house is never locked either and my key is hung up next to the door with the letter holder.

I am in no way what so ever worried about being burgled or having my car stolen.

I'm dreadful with keys.

Dear ex-H had a brand new company car - top of the 'range'. It was parked in the street in N1, I couldn't find any of the keys anywhere (I was last to have them). Eventually I looked in the car as I was really late and getting desperate. Car was unlocked, keys in ignition, spare key on floor mat. Obviously any would-be car thieves must have thought it was a set up.

Our current cars lock after a minute if the keys are out. I left one unlocked about 20 years ago, and in the morning some dirty sod had pissed in it.

Not an awful lot. We lock the house doors out of habit and because there were opportunity thefts in our village a while ago, but I regularly forget to lock the cars. In fact one has a keyless ignition and I left the key in the centre console a few months ago...

I always aim to lock the car, but my short-term memory for mundane things is pretty poor. So far I've been lucky. There is car crime in the area, but I have a skip of a mum-bus, not a highly desirable prestige brand that tends to be targeted. We're also a good combination of end of cul-de-sac for accessibility but visible from the main road so not as secluded for uninterrupted mischief as most of the streets in the area.

Mine would lock itself after the key fob got over a certain distance away.

My neighbour left his car unlocked by accident, he went abroad for 4 weeks.
When he came back someone was living in his car. 🤣🤣

Once I left my boss’s car unlocked for a whole night in the middle of busy West London. It was still there the next morning. I only realised that I left it unlocked when I had to drive it in the morning.
Whoopsadaisies...

Dh has given up lecturing me, he lived in fear of my car being stolen he was a village bobby and had to tell everyone about being security conscious. We are really not at all well matched in that area.

Mostly my car is blocked in on the drive by every other bugger so the worst they could do is pinch my emergency sunnies, scarves, hats, random charger wires and my cocoabutter lipsyl.

It locks itself as long as you have taken the keys out with you. If it didn't, probably nothing would happen to it. We have forgotten to lock our garden door countless times at night and been lucky that nothing has happened- we are more careful now we have DC.

I mean garden door as in door from garden to sitting room, not door into garden from lane.

So I did this for ages with both my cars (the one I had before this one and this one I mean).

For reference I live in a deprived area in the NW. On a small street that opens into a main road.

First car - the lock literally broke, because the car was 20 years old I didn't want to pay to get it fixed. So it lived on the street outside the front door for about 6 months till I scrapped it.

Second one - Ford Fiesta, ten years old - the latch on the boot failed and I just kept putting it off getting it fixed. I couldn't lock the door as it would trigger the alarm....all the fucking time . So I just folded in the wing mirrors and turned off the internal lights. Never left anything in it. One morning I woke up and the driver door was open, but like I say, nothing to take.

I did, however, get it fixed soon after that happened!

(I'm aware this was daft and I was VERY lucky!)

Well, dh frequently forgets to lock his car, resulting in bags being nicked that he’s left in there, including his work laptop 🙄
How do I know he hadn’t locked the car? I rewatch the cctv of him not locking the car. Case solved 🤦🏼‍♀️

My car is so old that even the thieves would knock on the door and tell me I’d left it unlocked

Even those fuckers wouldnt steal it

A friends child got in the back the other day and said ‘look moss mummy’

Shut up you little git

(To be fair he sounded really chuffed by the discovery of moss)

I expect something would get stolen from it. There's a fair bit of drug dealing in my area after all.

It is not an experiment I am prepared to run, at least not intentionally.

I frequently leave my car unlocked. Not deliberately , just cause I’m rushing getting everything into the house, multiple trips etc. I also have twice in the last year left the keys in the ignition. Unfortunately with modern cars it drains the battery which is very annoying. Nothing stolen though.

When I was a kids my parents left the keys in the cars permenantly, I remeber when I was a teenager they became ‘safety concious’ And Dad would go out and ‘ lock the cars and lock the house’ at 11pm when he went to bed’ this was early 90s . Not even sure they are that diligent at locking the cars now. They don’t lock the dorr very often, but then again neither do I. Far north of uk though so it’s fine.

Not a lot apart from old receipts. Dog would tell us someone is on the drive so don't think they'd bother (Dog has very loud bark)