Leslie

If you have a chance listen to this Sarah:

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radi...n-silent?act=2

Not that the Dallas police are much better. They're just bad in a different way. It's almost weekly that one of them gets picked up for beating the shit out of their wife or girlfriend.

Squirrel

NYPD are shit. They refused to give me a crime number when my bag was stolen with my passport in it because I had no ID. We went to the British Consulate (they called it the 'English Consulate!') and got an emergency passport to get me home. When we went all the way back to the cop shop to show them they said they'd have to keep it because they 'don't do copies' and it was 'because of 9/11.' Seriously I'd make up that my passport was stolen knowing it's not them who replace it?

It's things like that that make people unsympathetic to 9/11. I mean I live in London where we have been dealing with terrorists a lot longer! If they really think people having passports that don't belong to them isn't a more serious threat...

Forunately my insurance paid out without a crime ref. when I explained, but we did waste a lot of time with the NYPD and missed our train back to Boston.

Poppy girl

Would never of happened to Starsky and Hutch!!

Sarah

Haven't listened to the entire thing yet but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't shocked. I've always trusted the police, I used to work with a handful of coppers back in England and they were brilliant people a lot of whom used to try their damnedest to help folks.
I'm guessing its one thing the PD has in common with wall street, they both need monitoring more closely.
My husband said its because they, along with the armed forces, started to actively recruit bullies and abusive types , that the big bully everyone hated in high school always went on to be a cop or a soldier.

Sarah

NYPD don't exactly have a sparkling reputation do they!? My co-worker laughed when I asked her if she was going to call the police after she'd been mugged. Her response was "I live in the Bronx and I'm black, they're going to laugh their asses off if I call them."
I think 9/11 was a dream come true for organizations like these in many ways. Do whatever bullshit you want, abuse the system, peoples rights, be exceptionally rude and unhelpful to everyone and use 9/11 to justify it.
What a shame.

Leslie

Listen to it all the way through. You won't believe what happens. It's seriously ****ing demented.

DeanUK2US

Where I was staying in NYC, the landlord's wife was an NYPD officer. No complaints at all... nor very relevant...

Squirrel

The police are shite everywhere. My DH & I called the Met Police when the cafe beneath our flat was vandalised. You know what they said when they came? "Did you do this?" They asked for our full names and dates of birth which they said they needed 'for the report.' Why did they need our dates of birth? I'll bet if we had records they'd have arrested us for the vandalism. Like we'd cause damage then call the police to ourselves!

Tarkak9

Nor Kojak! Atleast you'd get a smile and a lollipop.

You're forgetting that the US regards everything as a saga overhere. Best to keep it all for your records for when you become on some list b/c some nut bought your passport on the blackmarket and caused some damage!!...

I'm afraid it could even get worse if National Defense Authorization Act bill goes through... where it could open a path for the military to arrest and detain American citizens, innocent or not, without charge or trial. (basically subjectively redefine "Militia" as "terrorists" and further trample over Amendments 2,4,5,6,8 ....)

RoadWarriorFromLP

To be fair to the cops, your story does seem odd.

If a van reversed into the front of your car, then I would expect to see some damage caused by the rear of the van colliding with the front bumper or grille of your car. If the only damage to your car was to the windshield and that was only just cracked, then a rock hitting it would appear to be the most obvious explanation.

That being said, they should have taken your report, even if they thought that it was BS. Go to a police station, and insist that they take one. If they refuse, go above their heads and keep complaining until you get a response.

Sarah

There was a definite ding in the front of my car, paint stripped off that kind of thing, my grille wasn't cracked, but then I do have an older-than-the-hills Taurus so the grille is a long way back into the car.
I'm wondering if I had a chip or a small crack in the windscreen behind the rear view mirror that I hadn't seen and the bump from the van just caused it to turn from a chip into a larger splinter. No idea really, admittedly cars are completely unknown to me

Bob

There won't be a huge deal of obvious damage from a car accelerating a couple of feet in front of you though.

This situation is shit, and if there were a slight ding in the window, could easily happen. Reason why folks in cold areas should get chips filled in asap, or they could easily crack right apart in the cold....saying that, I'm to lazy to get a couple of small chips repaired myself

RoadWarriorFromLP

It's odd, but there are times when windshields crack for no obvious reason. Whatever you do, you'll want to link the front end damage to the windshield, so that you pay only one deductible; if the items are considered to be separate incidents, you might be on the hook for two.

Sarah

As the temp drops and I'm wondering why the heck I still live in the NE of the USA. Fall is ace but it lasts for what, 2 weeks?! NYC winters are about as pleasant as a punch in the face, goodness knows how cold they are up where you are!

Bob

It's actually pretty good where I am, thankfully...supposed to be colder than where we were...but when we were living in Maine, that was really brutal...seeing the ocean freeze and all that

Folks had 6-8 inches of snow for Thanksgiving...that was almost amusing...funny how snow happens every year, but people still forget how to drive and we saw 6 suv's parked in various ditches when heading to the grandmothers near Bangor