On Fri, 08 Jan 2016 17:25:56 -0000, 879 wrote:



"Mr Macaw" wrote in message news
On Sat, 02 Jan 2016 12:47:11 -0000, NY wrote:

"MM" wrote in message
...
An Amazon Logistics delivery van came earlier to deliver a parcel. I
noticed that the van was still parked outside, blocking my drive, 30
minutes later. I asked the driver what was the problem, and he said
he'd locked his keys in the back of the van. Amazon sent an emergency
locksmith, who arrived 10 minutes ago. I'm rather surprised that he
hasn't got it open yet!

I don't need to go anywhere in a hurry, but as a matter of interest,
is it THAT difficult to open a van nowadays?

The locksmith is working on the side door, not the rear. (Not the
passenger door, the side door to the storage area.)

I'm surprised that car/van locks are still made in such a way that it is
possible to lock the door with the keys inside. If the front doors are
still
open, you'd think there would be an electronic override switch that would
open the rear door.

As time progresses, vehicles have stupider and stupider electronic
systems,

No.

like locking the door ITSELF after a certain time if you leave the vehicle
unattended. Of course the vehicle doesn't know the keys are in the
vehicle and not your pocket.

It does actually.

Even if it's supposed to sense them somehow,

In the same way it knows its in the car when you hit the engine start
button.

like mobile phones, signals aren't always 100%.

Perfectly possible to have it fail safe.

Except I've seen plenty that don't. If the sensor isn't sensitive enough, it doesn't know the difference between no keys and can't quite see the keys.

I've never locked my keys inside any vehicle because I *always* keep them
in
my pocket apart from when I'm using them to open a door (assuming the
remote
has failed) or to operate the ignition switch; and in the latter case I
always remove them as I am getting out of the car. I got into the habit
of
never putting the keys down anywhere (especially inside the car) even for
a
few seconds. Likewise if I shut a house door that has a Yale lock, I
always
check that I have my keys in my pocket/hand before slamming the door.
It's
an ingrained habit, just like giving the gear lever a waggle to confirm
it's
in neutral before letting the clutch up at the end of a journey or before
starting the engine (though in our new car I can't stat the engine unless
the clutch is down).

You must be the 1% of the population with a perfectly working memory and
never gets distracted.

That is the whole point of getting into that sort of habit,
it keeps working in that situation.

Habits only work for good memory. I can't even remember to clean my teeth or shave every day.

Have you never unlocked a door and been carrying something large/heavy and
had to put the keys down somewhere, then forget them?

No, never, because I don't have to put the keys down somewhere
in that situation. I can leave them in the lock until I put the large/heavy
thing down and then take them out of the lock and do what I normally
do with them.

Which is why I often see people's keys in their front door.

Have you never been leaving he house and thought "oops I forgot to...."
and gone back in, interrupting your locking procedure?

Yes, but the locking procedure works fine in that situation too.

Most people would then forget to continue the procedure.

I pretty soon stopped using the Yale lock on my house and hid spare keys
in the garden aswell.

With mine I have to use the key to lock the door as I go out.
It isnt possible to slam the door and have it lock without
using the key, so not possible to lock the keys in the house.

A more sensible lock. Mind you, I changed mine to electronic, the key fob is round my wrist, so I can't lose it or forget it. I can also unlock and open the door while my hands are full. I just hold my wrist near the door, then push the door open with my foot.

The one time I ever lost the keys was when I had just moved
into the house I had just built, well before it was even close
to being finished. I had rigged up a temporary bed by putting
an old door on a few concrete blocks in the second bathroom
which had had no work done on it at all. That had a number
of big earthenware pipes coming up thru the concrete slab
for stuff like the floor drain, the shower drain, the sink etc
which were completely open at the top.

I used to take a nap on that most days and managed to
have the keys fall out of my pocket, into one of those
drains without me noticing. After a lot of head scratching
I decided that that must have been what had happened
to the keys and sure enough, when I looked in the drain,
there they were.

I have also never run out of petrol in any car I have ever
driven except on the one occasion when I has picked up
a couple of Alsatian puppies from the state capital which
is more than one fill of petrol away from where I live.
I brought them home in the VW Beetle with the front
seat removed with the two puppies who where only
5 weeks old on some newspaper where the front
passenger's seat normally is. I did manage to forget
to fill up with petrol as I passed the place I usually
filled it on that run I did plenty of times.

Unless you have very far apart petrol stations, I don't see the problem. I just fill up whenever I see the gauge at 1/4 or less.

It's reassuring that the locksmith is taking so long to get inside,
because
if an expert is having this much difficulty, so will the local scrote
car/van thieves.

I once had the alarm break on a Ford Mondeo (M reg). It wouldn't stop
sounding, even though I had the key in my possession and could get into
the car. I called the AA. He reached under the dashboard below the
steering wheel and snipped the RED (!) wire. Alarm shut up, car worked
normally.

A car that I borrowed from my local garage when my car was in for
servicing
had a key that had no blade and so there was no way of getting into the
car
if the remote key or the car battery failed. Seemed a bit of a
fundamental
flaw.

Talking of batteries, why can't they make a bonnet with a normal lock like
the boot?

Presumably the lock ends up filled with dead insects
and dirt etc. Much easier to avoid that at the back.

I'm sure it could be under something, like the boot lock of a VW Beetle (new type) under the badge which rotates.

The cable release always ends up breaking.

I've only ever had the one break, on a Golf.

Same here, on a Golf. And a Maestro, a Sierra, and an Espace. They all use the same cable. When the catch gets a bit stiff and rusty, and the cable too, it snaps.

--
A man and his wife are ****ing.
Fifteen minutes has passed, 30 minutes, then 45 minutes.
Sweat is pouring off both of them.
The wife finally looks up and says, "What's the matter darling, can't you think of anyone else either?"