AC coils, manhole covers, catalytic converters, copper gutters, walnut trees, sad to see.
here we go again . . .
death to thieves
no redeeming qualities whatsoever
they’re wasting oxygen and other resources that could be better used by more deserving people
Palladium is now more expensive than gold.
What if one “unknowingly” got in androve away, killing the criminabeneath?
Reminds me of the scene in Unforgiven:
“You just killed an unarmed man!”
“Well, he should have armed himself.”
Good luck catching them at the right time. Stealing a cat takes less than 2 minutes with a battery-powered sawzall.
If we really want to stop this we need to start shutting down metal recyclers who accept catalytic converters without taking steps to make sure they weren’t stolen. Not just slapping them with fines, because when you pay maybe $150 for a cat (if that) and get 2+ grand for selling what’s inside, fines become just a cost of doing business.
Then it would not be a crime. No intent to harm, no knowledge of the result of your action.
My old county in Ohio made scrap yards check I.D. and photo everyone who brought scrap because copper and AC unit thefts had exploded back in 2011.
Same seems true here in Florida, I needed an ID to drop off scrap at the pay places. No such issue when I went to the county site and paid them to drop off my scrap.
Yeah. Some yards have started requiring cat sellers to tell them the make, model, and VIN of the vehicle it’s from or they won’t buy. That’s smart, because the average cat thief is running around town all night swiping a bunch of them and probably isn’t keeping meticulous notes on which cars they came from.
Makes sense to do that to protect themselves against onerous legislation. I suspect a small load from an auto repair shop would not need to do that even though they would have the data. If they bring in stolen cats at the same time, the responsibility would then fall back on the repair shop rather than the scrap dealer.
Here in Washington state, the scrap yards require photo ID,
For anything over $20, they are required to mail you a check for the full amount, and they can only mail it to the address that is on your photo ID
It’s obviously not limited to Denver…
Seeing this around our upstate NY city too .
That is unreasonably onerous to the people selling scrap materials. Most people who actually need to sell scrap metal are poor enough and move often enough that the address on their ID will be several apartments ago.
Here in Arizona, you are required to update your address with the MVD online, but you don’t get issued a new driver’s license/state ID just because you moved, and the address on my photo ID is not where I live anymore. Scrap dealers here are also required to send payment over a certain amount as a check through the mail, but there is no need to send it to the address on the customer’s ID, and such a requirement doesn’t add any benefit to deterring crime.
Old discussion but I thought this was kind of interesting from St. Paul. After 600 thefts this year or 6 per day, they have taken action, bless their hearts, to curb the thefts. Long line of cars waiting to get their converter painted with orange paint in the hopes that thieves will see the paint and move on to another car without paint. Hopefully the paint is heat and rust resistant. Whoever came up with this idea should get a medal. I don’t have any orange paint but I’ve got yellow, so maybe I’ll just paint mine.
Used to be anything that ain’t bolted down. So you have to replace a catalytic converter painted orange, then what?
Well from what I gather if a painted one disappears, they know it was stolen so it helps with their recordkeeping on how many are stolen. They say sometime 2 or 3 are stolen before a report is made. See, you don’t know how big a problem it is until you can get everyone to call in their thefts every time. Maybe they stencil 1,2,3,4 or something on them for each time it is replaced I dunno. These are the same folks that wouldn’t investigate our stolen truck that we ended up locating ourselves and identified the thief. Poor guy just got out of jail and needed a ride.
I have a lot of respect for these poor fellas that have found stealing car parts as the only way to support their family and believe their honor will not permit them to cut off an orange converter. Sarc.