My car locks its own doors as soon as I engage drive or reverse. Which is kind of funny, because it creates the illusion I'm trying to kidnap my passengers ...

It does make you wonder what will happen when these vehicles reach older life.

It does, but then I'll probably replace it when it's about ten years old, so at the same time it won't be my problem either.

Ah, I do love things that aren't my problem.

Mine is 17 years old now and covered in dog hair. I would have issues if it was something that was not an old beater.

Next month I will be hauling wood in it, need about 20 loads of logs. But any more dents do not really matter.

It's possible. But after so many years here the whole fear things has started to weigh heavily. It has just never happened to me anywhere else in the world that I'm driving along and then because I turn onto a certain street my passengers start locking their doors.

And no, the US most certainly does not have the monopoly on that - any time you want to waste a few hours of your life you can venture into the UKIP thread on TIO No idea if UKIP people lock their car doors when they see immigrants though.

I'm usually trying to get passengers out of my car.

Never been for a drive in Belfast in the late 90s, then?

No - I might have been worried about getting shot, but my guess is you can do that through the window without opening the door.

Belfast may have been one of those places where there was a real reason to be concerned, like Guatemala in the early 90s when I was there. You would know better than I. That is different from the sort of paranoia that makes people lock car doors just because they aren't in a white middle-class neighbourhood any more.

It was more in areas where the IRA or UVF were known to be active, for when you're stopped at lights and that. There was enough of an RUC and British Army presence on the street prior to the 1994 'ceasefire' though that your average man on the street didn't feel the need to be armed.

Though, it probably is the reason I don't have as visceral a reaction to guns as others on the forum do, because I'm so used to seeing armed coppers and soldiers with carbines walking around the city centre. It wasn't even that bad anymore when I was growing up - it was the lingering security threat that required the presence in the pre-Belfast Agreement Northern Ireland.

That being said, locking your car doors in general might not be a bad practice, even if just to protect against mechanical failure of the latch mechanism. I say this as someone who has been in a car whose door has flung open of its own accord at speed on the off ramp of a highway

Not too sure about in your car, but the reason for locking at slow speeds was brought in to stop car jacking. the locks usually disengage above about 10mph. or they will disengage in the case of an accident when there is a sudden stop, this is to allow people to be got from the vehicle in caase of an accident.

My locks stay locked until I re-engage park. They can be unlocked with the push of a button though, so while it is almost certainly an anti-carjacking feature, it has the added benefit of keeping the doors closed too. Nothing like the door flying open at 50 mph to wake you up, that's for sure. I was, at least, a passenger at the time ...

You'll probably have to reinstall the windows.

I just wouldn't be too quick to confuse a subculture with the culture itself.

Paranoid gun nuts are certainly part of American culture, but they aren't representative of the entire culture. They aren't even representative of all gun owners, while many other Americans don't even own guns.

I recall walking through Belfast and being a bit astonished to see that the armored vehicle waiting at the red light was, in fact, a cop car.

I wasn't referring to paranoid gun nuts. Or even normal gun nuts. That's just one extreme. I am referring to unarmed people who don't own guns for the most part just going about their normal business.