Talk about insult added to injury…
Imagine waking up one morning to find your vehicle is missing from the driveway. After filing a police report, you start receiving parking tickets for the stolen car, making your blood boil as insult is added to injury. That’s exactly what happened to a man in Ontario recently with his experience detailed out by CTV News.
Learn about the car theft problem in Ottawa here.
That’s right, about a month after the man’s Lexus was stolen, he received parking citations in the mail for that same vehicle. One was for the day after it was taken, another for eight days later. The Lexus was never recovered, although it could have been since it had been reported stolen.
The man rightly asks why when parking enforcement scans plates a stolen vehicle report doesn’t automatically pull up. We know car thieves often park stolen vehicles in public places for days after taking them, waiting to see if a hidden GPS tracker will lead the owner or police to the ride. That means quite a few stolen cars could have potentially been recovered by parking enforcement.
Car theft has become quite the problem in Ontario, just like in parts of the US and other countries. It’s not hard to imagine this same sort of thing is going on elsewhere and it’s completely senseless. In this age of technology when law enforcement is sharing all kinds of information among agencies, wouldn’t sharing stolen vehicle reports with parking enforcement be a no-brainer?
While frustrating, this man’s vehicle replacement was covered by insurance and he was able to fight for the tickets to be dismissed. It’s a good reminder to check on what your insurance policy covers. Also, you might want to consider dropping an extra GPS tracker in your vehicle, just in case.
Source and image CTV News
