Interstate security plates and dead locks

[Lily&Me]

If you are spending nights in a lot that looks like that, IB, I would consider that a very, very high risk environment.

I try not to even drive thru those kinds of areas, and believe most of us act the same.

I can’t relate to sleeping or even parking in this kind of environment, you’re right.

I once ran over broken glass in the dark, while on after hours on call and down in the “hood” in the city where I worked. My tire was flat and undriveable, tho if I’d absolutely had to I could have and would have driven on the rim.

I called AAA, and the police, and never left my vehicle until help arrived.

That said, no one approached me nor hassled me.

A determined thief will find his/her way in, or at least try with great determination and all the strength and energy a drug or mental illness fueled frenzy can bring.

You are exposing yourself to serious risk, if you stay in places like this, special locks or no.

Stay safe.

Maggie

[Hittenstiehl]

Yep that looks like downtown any big city just off the tourist street. Certainly an area for eyes up and awareness. As Maggie said stay safe and be cautious.

As unusual as some of our (collective) questions/threads seem we all use these vehicles/trailers in vastly different ways and places.

Although it sounds highly unlikely that someone would break into your vehicle for a dollars worth of change in the cup holder it happens. That dollars worth of change can get somebody a cup of coffee at the convenience store. Or sit at Denny's for a couple of hours of respite from the cold. If youre drug addicted that dollar (plus the others from the other cars you broke into) could give you enough to buy your next fix. If you're just hard up for money your car and a couple of others and you've got five bucks.

More people are struggling with drug addiction and mental illness than ever before. Property crimes are on the rise in all cities.

While most of us that camp have not been accosted, assaulted or approached in threatening manners or even had stuff stolen. All we have to do is watch one episode of the news or read one paper to see that crazy things happen, all over, at all times, to all kinds of people, for all kinds of reasons. All we can do is be safe, vigilant and practice good security and hope they'll move on to something other than ours.

[Alex AVI]

Originally Posted by Lily&Me

If you are spending nights in a lot that looks like that, IB, I would consider that a very, very high risk environment.

I try not to even drive thru those kinds of areas, and believe most of us act the same.

I can’t relate to sleeping or even parking in this kind of environment, you’re right.

MAGGIE - Yes, I have to agree on all 3 counts.

[InterBlog]

Not your typical editorial below.

I believe we are getting closer to a tipping point on managing thread detractors. This week there was a stunning example on Class B Forums where one of the better posters (usually!) drove an innocent newbie off the forum for no good reason - one of RoadTrek's victims, a performing artist who had to cancel his tour because of what happened.

People REALLY lashed back at the poster who did that, in a way I hadn't seen previously. It's starting to dawn on everyone that the status quo is just not working.

To that end, I have a request: If you don't agree with the premise of any given thread, that is your right -- but

PLEASE. GO. START. YOUR. OWN. THREAD.

STOP. TRYING. TO. ERODE. THE. THREAD. TOPIC.

This is just common sense! Number one, if the thread topic is reasonable, YOU WILL NOT SUCCEED. Number two, you are just going to create backlash and annoyance in doing that, like what happened so vividly on Class B Forum this week.

There is no upside for you, or for the OP. So WHY DO IT??

This thread right here is but one example - the other good B Van example this week is the incinerator toilet thread, where the OP is considering a certain product. Rather than objectively going through the analysis, what do we see? Some posters snickering at the fact that the guy is even considering that product. Why??

I was not among the people who poked fun at his idea. I just said, OK, there's a new idea, so let's look at the numbers. That's an appropriate response.

Maybe you don't think that personal security is worth worrying about. Or maybe you think that it is best achieved by simply avoiding the VAST number of activities and geographic areas where it might become a factor for you. Fine. But please respect the fact that not everybody's life is like yours.

Along the way, you might want to learn some new facts.

For example, did you know that the City of San Antonio is so violent that LB_3 and I have not been able to find a single vendor who will permit us to pay for overnight surface parking near the downtown core? Not one have we found to date. Why? BECAUSE THEIR LIABILITY IS TOO HIGH. THERE'S SIMPLY TOO MUCH CRIME.

Do you see the contrast between people who say "The odds are being a crime victim are soooo low" and the example - the FACT - presented in the paragraph above? Do you see the profound disconnect?

Maybe you think that people like LB_3 and I should delete the City of San Antonio entirely from our travel inventory as a result of this. But then where is the end point on that approach? Where does it stop? Do we also delete the next city, and the next city, and the next city?

And what makes you assume that we have a practical choice in the first place? That we CAN avoid San Antonio or any other city?

It's not functional - that whole line of thinking. What IS functional is responding appropriately to the known prevailing conditions. For instance, examining weak points in the van's security, such as the door handles, is functional.

Davy Crockett said it so well. Fortunately for me, today I'm in a different city where some vendors will allow me to pay for overnight parking. And where they sell Texas souvenirs such as this one I picked up yesterday.

[Alex AVI]

Originally Posted by InterBlog

To that end, I have a request: If you don't agree with the premise of any given thread, that is your right -- but

PLEASE. GO. START. YOUR. OWN. THREAD.

STOP. TRYING. TO. ERODE. THE. THREAD. TOPIC.

INTERBLOG - WOW! People hijack, detract, and disagree with me on probably 3/4 of my own threads (you do it yourself and of course I am guilty of it many times over). I just consider it part of the game. I don't like negative feedback or when others disagree with me either. But that's normal. So I will just always debate anyone who wants to get engaged (hijacked thread or not) but I don't ever want to drive them away. Most of the people that I have come to respect here (the senior members of the forum, you included) are folks I have had big disagreements over many issues. But I certainly would not dream of telling them to "Go to H***" . Please correct me if I misinterpreted that meme. If I misread your intent, then my apologies in advance.

What is the point in only getting positive feedback in any thread? When you hatch a thread wanting info & opinions, expect all comers. If you hatch a thread titled "What IS Security?" some smarta** out there will reply "Depends on what your definition of "IS" is. Please don't stress about this too much. IMHO You are too valuable a contributor to the forum to be bent out of shape over thread detractors. It not good for your heart. And the reality is it would be too boring of a forum if we all agreed every single time. Where's the fun in that?

Well - Thank you for posting this forum rule in writing. I will make sure I adhere. And hopefully you & everyone else does too. And if I forget, feel free to call me out. I will be sure to do the same.

[Lily&Me]

You and your husband shouldn’t cross any city off your list of places to visit and/or work, IB, but any city so violent that lot vendors won’t allow overnight parking because of it begs the question...why choose to try to sleep in your Interstate there.

Even if you can adequately reinforce locks and doors to effectively deter invaders until police can arrive, you still need to go in and out and your presence in your shiny, expensive rig may actually be provocative.

People don’t have to get inside to cause a lot of damage with whatever is at hand.

And, you know, when we talk here about taking reasonable safety precautions, it is that reasonableness that creates the safety which substantially lowers the risk of being a crime victim.

We have had many threads on safety and security, no one has ever suggested to my recollection that you should make an armored tank out of your rig and then insert yourself into inherently dangerous situations.

This is a dangerous choice you are making.

You are a valuable and respected contributor here, IB, but this is also a public forum and when you pose a question or issue you get the opinions, thoughts and perspectives that responders choose to provide.

They won’t all support your plan, but that is part of the package for all of us.

Maggie

[Pahaska]

Originally Posted by InterBlog

For example, did you know that the City of San Antonio is so violent that LB_3 and I have not been able to find a single vendor who will permit us to pay for overnight surface parking near the downtown core? Not one have we found to date. Why? BECAUSE THEIR LIABILITY IS TOO HIGH. THERE'S SIMPLY TOO MUCH CRIME.

We, and our extended family, often stay at the KOA near downtown San Antonio. It is not far from the ATT center and just a short bus ride downtown.
The bus stops directly across the street from the KOA. In all our stays there, we have never observed any violence, theft, or vandalism in over 20 years of staying there. There are at least 2 other RV parks nearby.

[InterBlog]

Originally Posted by Alex AVI

INTERBLOG - WOW! People hijack, detract, and disagree with me on probably 3/4 of my own threads (you do it yourself and of course I am guilty of it many times over). I just consider it part of the game. ....

You and I may consider it part of the game, but the newbies don't find it game-like or amusing -- especially when they are out thousands of dollars and/or a few hundred hours of their time through no fault of their own. They simply draw the logical conclusion that the forum hosts too many people who like to snicker at other peoples' ideas or predicaments, and they leave.

It has been a big problem on many forums, including this one in years past. A newbie would announce a problem, and some posters would react with disbelief that the problem could even exist, or they'd blame the newbie for it. Newbie would promptly leave in response. Fortunately, we had a lot of contributor push back on that, and it abated to a degree.

On the Class B Forum, that guy who was driven off this week was a self-employed person who is trying to make his van experience financially sustainable. He is not retired. He's not independently wealthy. And - WOW - as a self-employed person, he doesn't necessarily have a choice of where he parks his van each time he parks it. He has to go where his gigs are.

In other words, his rare profile looks a lot like mine - finally, a new person with the potential to comment on this version of the lifestyle. And they drove him off. He deleted his profile.

I sometimes wonder how many lurkers fail to engage here for the same reason.

Unfortunately we are all still dealing with Forums v. 1.0. I wish we had a barometer system that would allow us to down-vote content that runs counter to thread objectives. I don't mean polite constructive comments along the lines of "Have you considered factor X in your analysis" - those are perfectly reasonable and welcome. I mean the blatant "It's all in your head" or "You shouldn't be doing that in the first place" style comments. If we could all collectively down-vote those posters, the problem would take care of itself lickety-split. And maybe we would then welcome a greater diversity of newbies. I look forward to Forums v. 2.0, whenever that might arrive.

[Hittenstiehl]

IB sorry for your forum frustrations.

From you previous post:
"If we could all collectively down-vote those posters, the problem would take care of itself lickety-split”

I wonder how many if any of my mostly useless chitty chat posts would ever stay alive.

[Lily&Me]

Although I didn’t read the entire thread on another forum that you keep referring to, I did read some of it and the OP seems to have been ridiculed and made fun of, at least from some other posters.

Where were the moderators?

I don’t understand why you are pulling that thread on another forum into this thread, repeatedly referencing it and seemingly equating the two situations.

You have not been attacked, ridiculed, nor made fun of.

I think, IB, that your narrow range of acceptability for posts here, particularly posts that don’t agree with and ballyhoo your trajectory and ideas, is doomed to continue to bring you again and again to feeling attacked and belittled when what you have are divergent opinions and perspectives.

Maggie

[Boxster1971]

IMHO - some mild thread drift is more social and conversational.

[InterBlog]

Social drift and derailing are two different things.

I hatched this thread to consolidate information pertaining to security devices that are not available in the United States (I've confirmed this but I'm hoping to be impressed by someone who now proves me wrong). I've pulled together information from multiple sources in so doing (three forums, in fact, plus multiple vendors).

I don't see an answer to my original question - if someone doesn't believe this thread topic of lock plates and dead locks is relevant to their situations and their rig usage, then why be on the thread in the first place?

Do I go on Magnum inverter threads and tell people that they shouldn't want Magnum inverters? Do I try to discourage them from using Magnum inverters? No!! The most I might do is suggest that there's also a brand called Xantrex, which we've had good luck with. But beyond that, it's not my place to tell them what they should or should not want or do.

There could be someone reading this thread with a loved one who is staying overnight at a deep urban hospital, and they have to BE at that hospital in their rig - I've been there, done that, multiple times, in fact. And I've known others who have done that very thing also. Do those people need to be told that it's not good to stay in potentially dangerous urban areas? Or do they need ideas on additional security devices?

We all need to put ourselves in the shoes that we cannot see. Or at least give the benefit of the doubt on the point.

[Lily&Me]

No one has told you that you shouldn’t want the locks, nor are you talking about staying in a hospital parking lot.

This is a public forum, opinions are what you get.

I have a lot of respect for you, but think your expectations are unrealistic, IB.

Maggie

[InterBlog]

Originally Posted by Lily&Me

I am unfailing puzzled by serious concerns that our rigs will be broken into, resulting in ramped up energy expended trying to protect them from what seems to be a remote threat.....

Oh, but they DO tell me that I don't need the locks. In so many words - "unfailing puzzled by serious concerns" = "why do we need this?"

And again, I respectfully but very, very strongly disagree with this opinion because it does not even remotely fit my own life circumstances.

I may have identified a procedure that would help everyone here. How about this: every time someone hatches a thread about a new van build component that not every other van owner needs or wants, what if we start pairing them with sister threads that argue for the OPPOSITE conclusion?

So for example, someone could hatch a thread saying "I need to install a redundant electrical circuit and extra battery in my Interstate so that I can power my defibrillator" and then in the very next thread, other people can talk about why people don't need defibrillators in Interstates. They can talk about why they are so puzzled that someone would want a defibrillator in their Interstate, given that the threat of heart attack is so remote.

That way, those other people don't interfere with the guy who is taking his 84-year-old mother on a "final exit" road trip and therefore he genuinely needs a defibrillator. That way, he can have his cake, and those other people can eat it too - they can stay off his thread, but simultaneously still get to express their opinions which are so profoundly non-helpful to him as he develops a travel plan for his dying mother.

Incidentally, I hatched this thread after being stimulated into re-thinking the security lock and plate issue because of multiple other van security-related threads on other forums, none of which were mine. It seems to be "security season" or something - people are talking about it generally.

Those other forum threads were characterized by the usual parade of naysayers, cognitive dissonance sufferers, ostrich maneuverers, and the like - but interspersed with the flotsam and jetsam were some really good new ideas.

One of those was the lock-and-plate reinforcement that we see in this thread, but there were also nonlethal self-defense ideas presented as well.

Someone suggested getting a 120 dB hand-held air horn and blasting a van invader in the face with it. That's a superb idea that I had not encountered previously despite four years of research.

Another person suggested getting an ULTRA-bright flashlight and temporarily blinding a van invader with it. Ditto. Anything that could potentially help ward off an invader without me having to blow his head clean off is a valuable suggestion.

And a person in the urban high-rise apartment building above me has unwittingly provided me with both a really good laugh, and a new idea - broadcasting messages and intentions. As I was firing up my hotspot and logging on this morning, I noticed that they had named their wireless "#304 is a convicted felon" (referring to the apartment number). That is BRILLIANT - they know that a lot of people will see their message that way.

Maybe I should re-name my own wireless "Do NOT invade this van - you would regret it." Or find another way to communicate the same thing. Everybody carries a smart phone, even the criminals. I bet there's a proximal messaging app that would achieve something similar.

[wachuko]

Originally Posted by InterBlog

For continuity, here's the most promising UK lead that I've got on the products (same vid as in the permalink given above).

Sussex Installations has emailed me saying that they'd ship me the hardware, but I haven't looked into the logistics of that potential importation in detail yet. I figured I'd ask Million Mile Sprinter before going onto that branch of the decision tree.

That looks like the perfect solution and it is a clean and good looking install. If they are willing to send the hardware why not go with them?? Did they shared the cost?

I have been searching and looking at the other solutions provided here and they are just ugly or seem like too cumbersome...

[wachuko]

Never mind... I see that the pricing is on their website...

https://www.sussexinstallations.co.u...printer-1.html

So both front doors, side door, and rear doors: £307.98 for the locks and £257.98 for the plates around the handles.

Install video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qna0JAUEjDA

[InterBlog]

Originally Posted by wachuko

That looks like the perfect solution and it is a clean and good looking install. If they are willing to send the hardware why not go with them?? ...

It is a strong possibility, but I promised Joel (Million Mile Sprinter) that I will be his first customer if he can swing the import scenario. I'm giving him a couple more days to work on details.

Meanwhile, I'll spend AT LEAST that much time continuing to laugh out loud about #304. Urban spirit and resourcefulness at its finest! These people could teach me a thing or two, for sure.



Violent felons have an overall recidivism rate of about 71% (federal statistic) - and that's just for the ones that get recaptured - what % additional get away with it now that they've learned a thing or two about law enforcement? That 71% doesn't mean that you will be their next victim if you happen to park directly underneath their window for 3 days in a nice-looking van. But, it's one data point to keep in mind for perspective.

Unfortunately I've not found a successful way of dealing with the math illiteracy that surrounds the issue of personal safety. It's very difficult to communicate to people because we have no way to quantify any given statistical risk exactly, and therefore it seems to remain unconvincing.

But here is what we DO know is absolutely true - we cannot take aggregated averages and apply them to individual circumstances.

Someone on another forum attempted to do that last week - said, look, this piece of paper says 1 out of every 100,000 Americans get their throat cut (or whatever figure exactly); THEREFORE, your personal risk is also 1/100,000.

No - that is utterly not the way the math works. The guy who has planted his fat butt on the couch in front of the TV and does not move his position for the weekend might come closest to being the average individual best represented by the aggregate value. But the people who adopt different lifestyles, especially the outliers, might actually range from having individuated risks of, say, 1/1,000,000 down to about 1/10. Their individual risk hinges very much on what they do with their time and energy.

Unfortunately there's no practical way to prove that quantitatively. All we can do is point out that population averages cannot be used to predict individual outcomes, and hope that people have enough math insight to parse it.

[InterBlog]

Placing this anecdotal van invasion story here for future reference.

News crew robbed, guard shot while covering Oakland, California teachers strike; suspects arrested

Excerpt:

"Assaults on routine assignments became so commonplace in recent years in the Bay Area that some television stations have hired armed guards to ride with news crews, according to the Associated Press."

In this case, despite having hired an armed guard, the van was STILL invaded, and the security guard shot!

And there's actually very little that is fence-able if stolen from news vans. The cameras are expensive, yes, but they are also traceable, and they are not showing up on the black market, according to those reports.

It's yet another anecdotal reference in a sea of missing statistics. Armed guards don't come cheap, especially in areas like California. If employers believe that it is necessary to pay for them, then it must be REALLY necessary.

[InterBlog]

Another product I had not heard of previously, this one from Fiamma called Safe Door, and it also seems to be available only in Europe. Looks like it would be better for trailers than vans.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRzzjIzmXIs

[InterBlog]

I’ve got a Hail Mary type of request here – a long shot, but nothing ventured, nothing gained. It only takes me 5 minutes to type it.

I’m bumping this post in order to ask whether any of the lurkers on this forum are public figures who have had to deal with above-average security concerns while traveling. If you are, and if you’d like to share your experience in the van context with me (a newbie in this regard), please email me directly via interstate.blog -at- gmail. I’ll keep the discussion off all internet forums.

I mentioned above that I had embarked on a public service project that entails security concerns that are not the same as what the average vanner has to face. That fact led to disagreement in the thread above because, for security and privacy reasons, duh, I’m not revealing the scope of what I’m doing. Therefore people tend to assume my situation is ordinary, when it is not.

Suffice it to say that the work has created a sufficient level of public visibility that, within the past week, I’ve been contacted by trolls, people who are not who they say they are, and one self-professed psychic who claims to possess divine revelation. Plus, the commercial news media is interested in the novel way that my project is being managed – I’ve been working out of an off-grid van.

Those who are attracted to publicly-visible initiatives are almost all harmless – but there’s always that chance of drawing the focus of an individual who interprets reality differently, and who reacts in unpredictable ways. I have to evaluate that potential through the lens of personal security.

So, on that note, if you have experience in that area, please email me. Thanks.