Carjackers of the World Unite

My grandmother discovered the Internet several years ago, and she now uses it on a regular basis. Normally, she just searches for political articles to get angry about, and uses e-mail to communicate with myself, my brother, our uncle, my parents and so on.

These e-mails usually take the form of bizarre forwards that some paranoid cousin I've never met apparently sends off to her. It's always some dire warning about some every day item, the kind you would hear on the 11 o'clock news..."Don't use a cell phone at a gas station or the static electricity will kill you," for example. Or "Always wash the tops of soda cans before you drink them or you'll get botulism." Or "Walk on the other side of the street when you see a group of black kids approaching 'cause they might be strapped." That sort of thing.

But with today's e-mail, Mom Mom has really outdone herself. Check out this frightening report about carjackers:

Imagine: You walk across the Parking lot, unlock your car and get inside. Then you lock all your doors, start the engine and shift into REVERSE, and you look into the rearview mirror to back out of your parking space and you notice a piece of paper stuck to the middle of the rear window.

So, you shift into PARK, unlock your doors and jump out of your car to remove that paper (or whatever it is) that is obstructing your view...

When you reach the back of your car, that is when the car-jackers appear out of nowhere, jump into your car and take off!! Your engine was running, (ladies would have their purse in the car) andthey practically mow you down as they speed off in your car.

I hope you will forward thisto friends and family...especially to women! A purse contains allidentification, and you certainly do NOT want someone getting your home address.

I like how the passage dramatizes the scenario. It doesn't just say "Beware that carjackers might place an object on your car to obstruct your view." It re-enacts the scene cinematically to give you a real sense of what it would be like to fall victim to this clever scheme.

It doesn't sound, however, like a very efficient way of stealing cars. Think about it. You have to stake out a car you want to steal, put a piece of paper on the back (or something), and then wait around for the person to return to their car. Assuming it happens before you get tired and go home, or when you're not away from your post having a cigarette or taking a dump, you have to just hope that your potential victim doesn't notice the piece of paper on his or her car before initially getting in and turning over the engine. If they see the paper before getting in the car (and let's be realistic...most people would, if it was big enough to obstruct their view in the first place), your whole night was wasted.

Why not just get a gun and put it in someone's face when they're getting into their car? Saves you the trouble of obtaining paper and you can pretty much do it whenever you want without preparation.

The e-mail is signed, as all of these scare e-mails are, by an "expert" on criminal justice. In this case, it's M/Sgt Terry A. Granell, Illinois State Police, Zone 2/East Moline. So, I took the liberty of Googling the name. And guess what I found...

It's a hoax. The name linked me to Snopes, an excellent website that dispels urban myths. Here's what they had to say:

Since February 2004 we have been watching the news most carefully for any sign of an actual carjacking — either perpetrated or merely attempted — that followed the script outlined in the widely-spread e-mailed caution. We have yet to see evidence of so much as one. Were this "lure motorists from their vehicles by leaving flyers on their cars' rear windows, then drive off with their buggies" method in play, that surely would not have been the case.

Nothing rules out there having been one car theft carried out in the manner described that we have yet to hear about. But even if that proves to be the case, there is clearly no crime wave, no ever-present danger to motorists everywhere, no flyer-armed menace lurking in the nation's parking lots.

And there really is a Sgt. Terry Granell, but he forwarded this e-mail along from his work e-mail account without the prior knowledge or permission of the Illinois State Police. It was just a mass e-mailing that he'd received and sent along...he didn't write it at all.

So, why bring this up in the first place? Well, there is, sociologically speaking, always some import in looking at urban legends. In this case, this e-mail preys on the fear of carjacking, particularly as it concerns women. I find it interesting that the e-mail goes right from suggesting a new scheme for carjacking to alerting women of the dangers of strangers knowing their home address. Like many urban legends, it seems to hint at some sort of buried sexual paranoia.

But, really, I just wanted to help dispel this particular rumor. If any of you out there got this e-mail, or any others like it really, just ignore them. These things do nothing but strike fear into the hearts of the grandmothers of the world, and who needs that?