ILLICIT "JOY-RIDING."

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18325, 15 February 1923, Page 8

ILLICIT " JOY-RIDING."

LOCKING CARS PROVES VAIN. EXPERT THIEVES AT WORK. CHRISTCHURCH TROUBLE., [BT TELEGRAPH.—OWN CORRESPONDENT.] CHRISTCHURCH, Wednesday ' Joy-riding in motor-cars taken without authority from parking places in Christ-, church, is a form of illicit pleasure that is on the increase. The police are receiving many complaints from owners of cars whose machines have been taken and subsequently found in some back street with very little petrol in the tank. • A new phase of trouble is that even the locking of cars does not always ensure their being where left when the owners return. The latest development shows that the thefts are being made by persons with considerable mechanical knowledge, perhaps gained through employment in garages. ( There are many ways of locking cars, one of the most" common being to disconnect the ignition switch. These export thieves soon overcome such checks, though perhaps, their expert knowledge will, in the end, prove their undoing. It certainly limits the field of inquiry by the police, who are. not without their suspicions in the matter, but the owners of cars do not always give the police much help. ■ Often an eye is kept on cars left unattended by constables in plain clothes. The other evening one such constable accosted a man entering a car standing near the Y.M.C.A. building. After informing him that he was a constable, he asked if the man was the owner of the car. " What has that got to do with you ? was the rude reply. That evening a car was taken from this parking place though not the one concerning which the constable had inquired.