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So you think you can own a car in Oakland!
Dec. 8th, 2022 02:26 pmA while back I recounted the tale of how my catalytic converter went missing from my Honda Accord. That's been happening a lot in Oakland lately. In fact, that particular year of Accord is such a popular target - due to the high quantity of valuable metals inside the converter - that the California Air Resources Board (the acronym is CARB, isn't that so clever?) had to amend the smog regulations, allowing a wider range of parts, because otherwise people trying to replace a stolen converter on their car would simply not be able to find one, anywhere.
You'd think that there would at least be a black market where thieves would sell stolen converters back to victims for an extortionate price, but no, that would make them too easy to trace and be caught by law enforcement. Instead the converters are melted down by unscrupulous recyclers for their trace metals, and simply gone, and for a while now, manufacturers of new parts haven't been able to keep up with the loss, leaving lots of working-class people with absolutely no choice but to drive illegally in a car with lapsed registration just to get to work. That's pretty hilarious, no? Har-de-har!
What this really is, is an opportunity for me to feel grateful, because I am able to do almost everything I need for daily life using a bicycle. The car is useful to me, but not vital. Many others are less lucky...
Anyway, when I got my converter replaced, the auto shop welded cables all around it to make it much harder to chop out with a hand-held saw. The Accord had additional problems, chief among them a leaking head gasket, so I left it parked in front of the house for several months while I dealt with other things. One day I came back from a trip to Sacramento and it was gone again. Not the catalytic converter; the entire car was gone. I can only assume that someone tried the trick of replacing the Emissions Control Unit again, and this time the hacked part they used for the job was effective, and they drove the car away, not realizing that it had such a severe oil leak that in about four blocks all the oil would be spewed out the bottom of the engine and soon after it would seize up and be destroyed.
I had a train to catch, so I was pressed for time already, but I got on the phone immediately to the police and tried to report the theft. The officer on the line said I had to come down in person to file the report, which I was ready to be furious about, but then he explained why: They've been dealing more and more with episodes of "swatting", and a particular variation where people call up the police and report a car that they don't own - but which belongs to someone they dislike - stolen, causing the police to pull the victim over and have a tense confrontation, wasting everyone's time and traumatizing the victim. It's hideous and the only way the police can cut down on being used as a tool by abusers and stalkers is to insist that the owner of the car show up in person and present ID to make the claim.
So a few days later, I went in at midnight (after jumping up and down in the outdoor pit of a Nine Inch Nails show at the Greek to vent some frustration) so I could avoid the very long lines that are there during the day. The officer at the desk said I was the 7th person to come in reporting a stolen vehicle during his shift that night, and the person he replaced earlier took 15 reports. And that didn't include reports taken on-site by officers on patrol. He said it was actually a bit slower than a typical day.
He said there were several outcomes possible, and the most likely one was that the car was driven into West Oakland to one of the encampments, most likely the huge one on Wood street. From there, people would drive the car running errands until it ran out of gas, or just siphon the gas and leave it close at hand, slowly stripping parts.
The database he put the report into is nationwide, and includes the VIN of the car as well as the license plate, so even if the car was driven to Alaska they’d be able to contact me. Unfortunately, if it's found out of state the local law enforcement would haul it to an impound yard long before they contact me, where it would accumulate hideous fees, which my insurance may not cover.
I told him if I ever found the car again, I'd hide an AirTag somewhere in it. He said AirTags help a lot, because if they’re well hidden, the thief will get a notification that an AirTag has been “following” them on their phone and will often panic and ditch the car.
It was an informative conversation, even if it was all bad news. I walked out of the station with a broader picture of just how common vehicle theft is nowadays.
About a week later I got a call from an officer on patrol, saying they'd located the car while clearing out one of the West Oakland encampments.
They hauled it to a storage area between two freeways, guarded by a police car and staffed by several contractors with heavy moving equipment, since about half the cars they have to deposit there are burned out and do not even roll. The officer on the phone expressed surprise that my car hadn't been set on fire like all the others. At some point an abandoned vehicle is so stripped and useless that the only purpose it can serve is a short, stinky bonfire. For the lulz.
I drove down there and inspected it. Trunk broken, battery gone, radio ripped from console, gas siphoned, catalytic converter cut out - who knows how much more time it took to saw through all the cables - radiator fouled with roasted oil, one flat tire (just one?), emissions control unit missing, filth everywhere, and so on. I had "liability only" insurance on the car, which I should have changed after the catalytic converter was stolen the first time, but the Accord was only ever meant to be an around-town car that I didn't need to rely on.
It's a very messy situation -- literally as well as ethically.
It reminds me of the way protests in Oakland get portrayed in national news: A handful of vandals and violent people use them as cover, and the behavior of those people shapes the attitude towards them all. So many of the homeless are shut out of both family support and legal employment for various reasons - mental health, drug addiction, criminal record, undocumented status - and are just looking for a way to get by. And when making money by legal means it out of the equation, and charity reaches its limit, what's left but illegal means?
Someone stole my car because they needed cash for a drug habit or something to eat, and someone else was willing to exploit them for that. They risked their lives for probably less than a hundred dollars in fenced parts, and organized crime made a few hundred more, while I and the city of Oakland each lost several thousand cleaning it up, and for all that, what changed? What improved in anyone's situation?
With proper coverage, the insurance company would have called the car a total loss, and I would have probably gotten about 3 grand from them for a replacement. Which would be extremely questionable, given how much more used cars have gone up in price just because of the value of their intact catalytic converters. But so much for hindsight. With the car immobile in the storage lot, my best option was to donate it to a charity, and let them handle the expense of towing it away. Then I could file a release of liability form with the DMV and put an end to this whole saga.
Well, I tried. For over a month I tried to get myself, the contracted tow truck operator, the police officer guarding the storage lot, and the CalTrans employee holding the paperwork, all in one place, but the tow truck was consistently unable to meet me before 2:00pm, and that was when the police officer locked the gate to the storage lot. After the third blown appointment window I called up the charity and told them there was no hope, and I just had to let the car get crunched into a square and heaved onto a flatbed with a bunch of other squares and taken to a scrapyard. More wasted time, more material cycled around in a loop for no good reason, and no 600 dollars for the nice charity.
I am now down to one vehicle again - the van - which I no longer park overnight in Oakland, ever. Yeah, the van... There's another tale worth telling. And the California legal system is involved there, too. But let's not leave things on a sour note! Here's a fun little comic.
You'd think that there would at least be a black market where thieves would sell stolen converters back to victims for an extortionate price, but no, that would make them too easy to trace and be caught by law enforcement. Instead the converters are melted down by unscrupulous recyclers for their trace metals, and simply gone, and for a while now, manufacturers of new parts haven't been able to keep up with the loss, leaving lots of working-class people with absolutely no choice but to drive illegally in a car with lapsed registration just to get to work. That's pretty hilarious, no? Har-de-har!What this really is, is an opportunity for me to feel grateful, because I am able to do almost everything I need for daily life using a bicycle. The car is useful to me, but not vital. Many others are less lucky...
Anyway, when I got my converter replaced, the auto shop welded cables all around it to make it much harder to chop out with a hand-held saw. The Accord had additional problems, chief among them a leaking head gasket, so I left it parked in front of the house for several months while I dealt with other things. One day I came back from a trip to Sacramento and it was gone again. Not the catalytic converter; the entire car was gone. I can only assume that someone tried the trick of replacing the Emissions Control Unit again, and this time the hacked part they used for the job was effective, and they drove the car away, not realizing that it had such a severe oil leak that in about four blocks all the oil would be spewed out the bottom of the engine and soon after it would seize up and be destroyed.
I had a train to catch, so I was pressed for time already, but I got on the phone immediately to the police and tried to report the theft. The officer on the line said I had to come down in person to file the report, which I was ready to be furious about, but then he explained why: They've been dealing more and more with episodes of "swatting", and a particular variation where people call up the police and report a car that they don't own - but which belongs to someone they dislike - stolen, causing the police to pull the victim over and have a tense confrontation, wasting everyone's time and traumatizing the victim. It's hideous and the only way the police can cut down on being used as a tool by abusers and stalkers is to insist that the owner of the car show up in person and present ID to make the claim.
So a few days later, I went in at midnight (after jumping up and down in the outdoor pit of a Nine Inch Nails show at the Greek to vent some frustration) so I could avoid the very long lines that are there during the day. The officer at the desk said I was the 7th person to come in reporting a stolen vehicle during his shift that night, and the person he replaced earlier took 15 reports. And that didn't include reports taken on-site by officers on patrol. He said it was actually a bit slower than a typical day.
He said there were several outcomes possible, and the most likely one was that the car was driven into West Oakland to one of the encampments, most likely the huge one on Wood street. From there, people would drive the car running errands until it ran out of gas, or just siphon the gas and leave it close at hand, slowly stripping parts.
The database he put the report into is nationwide, and includes the VIN of the car as well as the license plate, so even if the car was driven to Alaska they’d be able to contact me. Unfortunately, if it's found out of state the local law enforcement would haul it to an impound yard long before they contact me, where it would accumulate hideous fees, which my insurance may not cover.
I told him if I ever found the car again, I'd hide an AirTag somewhere in it. He said AirTags help a lot, because if they’re well hidden, the thief will get a notification that an AirTag has been “following” them on their phone and will often panic and ditch the car.
It was an informative conversation, even if it was all bad news. I walked out of the station with a broader picture of just how common vehicle theft is nowadays.
About a week later I got a call from an officer on patrol, saying they'd located the car while clearing out one of the West Oakland encampments.
They hauled it to a storage area between two freeways, guarded by a police car and staffed by several contractors with heavy moving equipment, since about half the cars they have to deposit there are burned out and do not even roll. The officer on the phone expressed surprise that my car hadn't been set on fire like all the others. At some point an abandoned vehicle is so stripped and useless that the only purpose it can serve is a short, stinky bonfire. For the lulz.
I drove down there and inspected it. Trunk broken, battery gone, radio ripped from console, gas siphoned, catalytic converter cut out - who knows how much more time it took to saw through all the cables - radiator fouled with roasted oil, one flat tire (just one?), emissions control unit missing, filth everywhere, and so on. I had "liability only" insurance on the car, which I should have changed after the catalytic converter was stolen the first time, but the Accord was only ever meant to be an around-town car that I didn't need to rely on.
It's a very messy situation -- literally as well as ethically.
It reminds me of the way protests in Oakland get portrayed in national news: A handful of vandals and violent people use them as cover, and the behavior of those people shapes the attitude towards them all. So many of the homeless are shut out of both family support and legal employment for various reasons - mental health, drug addiction, criminal record, undocumented status - and are just looking for a way to get by. And when making money by legal means it out of the equation, and charity reaches its limit, what's left but illegal means?
Someone stole my car because they needed cash for a drug habit or something to eat, and someone else was willing to exploit them for that. They risked their lives for probably less than a hundred dollars in fenced parts, and organized crime made a few hundred more, while I and the city of Oakland each lost several thousand cleaning it up, and for all that, what changed? What improved in anyone's situation?
With proper coverage, the insurance company would have called the car a total loss, and I would have probably gotten about 3 grand from them for a replacement. Which would be extremely questionable, given how much more used cars have gone up in price just because of the value of their intact catalytic converters. But so much for hindsight. With the car immobile in the storage lot, my best option was to donate it to a charity, and let them handle the expense of towing it away. Then I could file a release of liability form with the DMV and put an end to this whole saga.
Well, I tried. For over a month I tried to get myself, the contracted tow truck operator, the police officer guarding the storage lot, and the CalTrans employee holding the paperwork, all in one place, but the tow truck was consistently unable to meet me before 2:00pm, and that was when the police officer locked the gate to the storage lot. After the third blown appointment window I called up the charity and told them there was no hope, and I just had to let the car get crunched into a square and heaved onto a flatbed with a bunch of other squares and taken to a scrapyard. More wasted time, more material cycled around in a loop for no good reason, and no 600 dollars for the nice charity.
I am now down to one vehicle again - the van - which I no longer park overnight in Oakland, ever. Yeah, the van... There's another tale worth telling. And the California legal system is involved there, too. But let's not leave things on a sour note! Here's a fun little comic.
