Talk:Motor vehicle theft

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This is generally understood to refer to the stealing of automobiles, buses, motorcycles, snowmobiles, trucks, and the like; but not to aircraft, boats, bulldozers, and spacecraft.

So, exactly what is the term for theft of spacecraft? Space vehicle theft? What about stealing of bulldozers? Egil

Depending how it's done, I would think it'd be piracy, mutiny, hijacking, or privateering, or classed as "spoils of war". It would certainly be interesting to see a test case in court. <g> -- John Owens

Actually the text I have here says that it is simply larceny. (anon)

The coolest vehicle I've ever seen stolen is a tank. The Killdozer was better than the tank, but it wasn't stolen. I guess if someone stole a space shuttle, that would top both of them easily.

You're referring to Shawn Nelson's notorious tank rampage. --Coolcaesar 07:21, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] NPOV

I don't think this article has a very neutral POV. At the bottom, it refers to Mexico and former Soviet Union nations having a lack of customs control or database access. I would think that this is just flat-out not true, but I don't know. In any case, I believe it biased. --Zeromaru 01:45:19, 2005-09-06 (UTC)

Actually, I feel like I have to support this opinion. This is true, however, that there were paths of stolen car trafficking from Germany to Eastern Europe, but this is only part of the truth. Generally, smuggling of stolen luxury cars (or other luxury goods) happens everywhere where there is a relative difference of opulence in neighbouring countries, so there's nothing informative in this paragraph. To maintain NPOV it should describe it either in more details, or in general as I did it in last sentence.
From what I have heard it is true that many cars stolen in the US end up in Mexico, perhaps because it is (obviously) easier to evade US authorities when you get the thing over the border. I took out specific mention of Mexico and the former Soviet countries (personally I think calling these states "former Soviet" is really dumb because the term is so vague) and tried to make that part more generic. How do you think it reads now? -- Andyluciano 23:23, 10 September 2005 (UTC)
It reads good. At the time of my edit, I couldn't exactly word it suitably enough, so I added the NPOV notice with the hopes that someone would be able to. And you have. I've removed the NPOV notice, since I'm pretty sure I'm the only one who complained about the POV. If anybody else feels that the article still lacks a NPOV, feel free to re-add the notice. --Zeromaru 02:47:01, 2005-09-11 (UTC)
Still, it's only missing the "come to Poland/Russia/Wherever, your car is already here" jokes. And from what I know, luxury car thefts are only big when counted in value. Most cars are stolen to be dismantled for parts - which are so much easier to bring back to market.

What can you do when your previous landlord removed your non-running car and all of you belongings from your apartment you were moving out of without going through an eviction process? Is that still Motor Vehicle Theft? -Loria (mommawhitetigerx3@yahoo.com)

[edit] Expand the topic?

I found this article sorely lacking (not criticizing anyone, just making a point). I would like to see the following content here:

Statistics both per country and over time, or at least link(s) to same, as well as theft rate per car models.

Sociological aspects (why some locales experience more car theft than others, demographics of typical thieves, etc.).

Preventative measures by car owners, countermeasures by thieves, counter-countermeasures, etc., and the usefulness of each kind of deterrent/defense (Club, Lojack/Onstar, alarms, VIN etching, passive non-alarm systems, etc.).

I've been doing some research over the past few days, but there's a lot of misinformation laying about on the web, or I'd do it myself. John DiFool2

On a leisurely sidenote, this article might include a reference to the "Gone in Sixty Seconds" movie. CrystyB

[edit] Spacecraft?

From the article: 'This is generally understood to refer to the stealing of automobiles, buses, motorcycles, snowmobiles, trucks, and the like; but not to aircraft, boats, bulldozers, and spacecraft.'

Was there some case of spacecraft theft in the past? This sounds strange. --Michael Sch. 17:56, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "grand theft auto"

Where does this name come from? A more normal word order would be 'grand auto theft' (or 'grand theft of automobiles' with 'grand' meaning 'serious,' presumably). Is it a colloquial term? Njál 22:58, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

As far as I understand it, grand comes from the Law French that was common in old England along with Law Latin. Grand is simply big and petit is small. For example, there were grand juries that did big investigations to indict criminal suspects and petit juries which convicted suspects of crimes (both of which we still have today, although most laypersons aren't familiar with the term petit jury because it's only used in law schools). Somehow petit got turned into the English term "petty" in many contexts, so now we have grand theft (for high-value thefts) and petty thefts (for everything else). I think the addition of the auto part was probably police slang as a way to shorten "grand theft of an automobile" but I'm not sure. --Coolcaesar 00:27, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Image

This article is considerably bland without a single image. I have replaced the image and changed the wording to be more descriptive. Whatever the case, this shows vehicle entry without keys and hence hot-wiring etc. Consider discussing the image or finding a more suitable one before removing it. Theonlysilentbob (talk) 06:59, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Spelling error

The last section says "Police deparments" instead of "Police departments" in its second paragraph. 66.245.152.77 (talk) 04:06, 30 May 2008 (UTC)