possible van hijack or a concerned motorist

[klberlingo]

i'm telling you's this tale of something that thankfully never happened if that makes sense.

Driving home about 7pm in a van about 5miles from home on a C road, at about 40mph and the car in front kept slowing down, brake lights coming on, bit of lane wandering, speed dropped back till 30, (good smooth flowing road) getting a bit close and mindful of them doing something stupid. Came on a T-jct and both of us turning right, No one coming in either direction, 2-3 seconds of hesitation wondering why he wasnt moving off, then suddenly his passenger door opens, then the drivers one opens and out jumps a fella in a yellow workmans jacket, in half a second he was at my window. Just taken very quickly by surprise at him right there.

Trying in my mind to remember if the doors were locked (this was a renauit trafic), put the window down couple of inches. He says that "I had a wonky headlight" I just said "oh OK" and put the window back up and he jumps back, thinking i was going to get out. But I knew the headlights were fine. The next thing I knew he was back in the car and away. Got the reg in my head but never thought much of it till i got home, checked the lights against a wall and all 100%.

So I'm thinking, was this an attempt to get me out of the van, to walk round to the front, for his passenger to have sneeked around the back to get in and drive off, leaving me standing!! The van was completely empty, so no tools.

[brodfather11]

You never know what is going through someone's mind do you, It could well have been an attempt to get you out of the van, jump in and away with it :eek:

At least your not telling us how you lost your van. :thumbsup:

[nil by mouth]

Who knows what they were up to or thinking but it certainly seemed bogus to me :eek:
At least you're here to tell the tale , luck escape dude :woop:
Onward and upward :thumbsup:

[obdtech]

Cheers for sharing your experience, makes us all wiser.
Lucky escape me thinks.
This is what forums are for

[CandR]

Makes me even more thankful that even in my comparatively ancient Mk 1, if you bang down the locking knob with your elbow, everything locks! My lady likes that too. The kind of thing you have to kind of set in your mind....: 'When in doubt, elbow on that knob!'

[Andre]

Think you handled it the best you could by not giving them any benefit of the doubt, glad you are still with the Berly. Heard of this sort of tactic being played on truckers up and down the motorways, but not so often against car/van drivers, good reminder too.

Will never cease to amaze me how wary you always have to be. We live in a relatively nice area, and last Sunday our neighbours from across the road nipped out on Sunday afternoon and (we later found out) didn't lock their front door. In that time frame, someone realised the door wasn't locked and got away with their Accord. It's the opportunism of it that gets me.

[steelviper]

think you did the ring thing there mate, I drive Hgv's a I have had similar incidents to this happen. I find the best thing to do is run with the cab doors locked all the time even during the day iv had folk running up and trying to open my cab doors while im stopped at lights

[klberlingo]

I spoke to the police and they have looked into the incident, gave details of the car and some of the reg as i don't recall it exactly. No other similar incidents reported to them, but yes they thought thats what they were trying to do.

[crickleymal]

Will never cease to amaze me how wary you always have to be. We live in a relatively nice area, and last Sunday our neighbours from across the road nipped out on Sunday afternoon and (we later found out) didn't lock their front door. In that time frame, someone realised the door wasn't locked and got away with their Accord. It's the opportunism of it that gets me.

Or indeed how trusting some people are. I sold a motorbike to someone in Bristol and as he hadn't got insurance I delivered it to him (I worked in Bristol at the time) and got my wife to pick me up. He invited us in, realised he hadn't got all the money and said his wife must have hidden it in the house somewhere. She was at a cub scout meeting locally so he was going to nip out and ask her where it was. He was just going to leave us in the house on our own with his nice new computer etc. So we said we'd wait in the car. He went out without locking his door as well.

[teddyc1]

I've had my Lingo van for a year. But years ago in Los Angeles I had a classic 1965 VW Microbus. One morning I pulled up to a neighborhood intersection with a car parked on an angle right in the middle of the intersection. My friend in the passenger seat said, "Jack move," meaning they were trying to hijack cars. I punched the accelerator and as we curved around the parked car and kept going, 4 people were all jumped out of that car and chasing us down on foot. They didn't succeed, but in an ancient VW it was too close for comfort.


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