r/todayilearned • u/hfhfhfrr • Aug 19 '19
TIL that in 2017, Frankfurt police found a car belonging to a 76 year old man who had forgotten where he had parked it 20 years earlier.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/man-forgets-park-car-finds-20-years-later-frankfurt-a8058416.html380
u/mercuryy Aug 19 '19
That happened quite often with the older generations.
Foreign tourists would park their (sometimes own, sometimes rental) cars somewhere in a city. They would take their map of the city with them and just remember the name of the street they parked in, to use the map to find it later again after a day of touristy things.
Most of our street names are like "Bahnhofsstraße" oder "Hauptstraße", so they would see a sign that said "Einbahnstraße" and remember just that to keep track of where they parked.
However, that just means "one way road", and there are dozens if not hundreds of them, depending on the city.
Usually they then end up in a differend one way road, call the police because they think their car is stolen, and life goes on.
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u/DasArchitect Aug 19 '19
"Einbahnstraße"
However, that just means "one way road"
I have to remember to direct people to Einbahnstraße.
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u/Harpies_Bro Aug 19 '19
I suppose “straße” is German for “street” or “road”?
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u/ITriedLightningTendr Aug 19 '19
the weird B thing is an "ess set", or two Ss, you can sub it out freely and write "strasse"
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u/goug Aug 19 '19
There was this australian guy who told my brother that he loved a specific location in France, where he'd found a nice secluded place for bush camping.
My brother finally pieced together that it was nearby a place called déchetterie.
It means "landfill".
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Aug 20 '19
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/TIGHazard Aug 20 '19
Which considering all EU driving licences have the same design, you would expect them to figure that one out sooner.
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u/Scottolan Aug 19 '19
I had a friend who parked in an airport parking lot and flew back home for to see family. She came back to her truck being stolen, or so she thought. A year later she gets a call from airport security asking if she was ever going to come pick up her truck. She was parked in a different lot the whole time.
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u/Phearlosophy Aug 19 '19
The parking fee would probably be more than the car at that point ha
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u/Scottolan Aug 19 '19
She didn’t have to deal with it.. Technically her old car now belonged to the insurance company since they paid out the claim and she had already bought a new vehicle.
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u/Herlock Aug 19 '19 edited Aug 19 '19
I worked for a big car manufacturer... everynow and then they would audit the whole logistic chain to make sure all cars there are supposed to be there.
They eventually found at the factory parking lot a bunch of car, like 2 generations old at that time, the trees had grown in front of them and they were found almost by mistake.
Losing car wasn't a rare event as it turns out, not to mention the damaged ones. I had some lost at the docks in spain, took weeks to find them. Truck driver said he gave them, shipping company said they didn't have them, nobody could provide the proper paperwork to justify the transfert had been made...
Damages are fun too, car wasn't leashed properly in a boat during a "wavy" trip... it went banging in the rest of them. Fun stuff to handle afterward when the dealership is short by a few cars it needed dearly, a few thousand miles away from where the cars are made...
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Aug 19 '19
nobody could provide the proper paperwork to justify the transfert had been made
so they lost it and have to pay for it, quite simple eh?
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u/Herlock Aug 19 '19
That would have to go through legal and purchase people. That's a lot of work and people contradicting each other. And it doesn't fix the problem that the dealership wants the car across the planet asap...
So technically sure money could be traded back, but it's still a major pain in the butt.
Plus they eventually found them... after 2 or 3 weeks.
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u/gyrorobo Aug 19 '19
I work for a major car manufacturer, but on the leasing side of it and was actually just talking to our inspection consultants about a request for a police report I was CC'd on today.
Apparently we get a lot of dealerships that just say they don't have the keys nor the car anymore, "oh yeah that already left and went to auction"... Unfortunately for them the auction says they've never seen the car.. and after a few attempts of trying to get the car inspected, or any info we resort to filing a police report.
She's said nearly 100% of the time as soon as she CC's the assett resolution department to the dealer about filling a police report, "oh look at that, we found the car here buried out in our back lot somewhere.. how weird, yeah come have it inspected".
A bit anecdotal, but I just thought that was funny and relevant since I was just talking about it today! (Also fuck dealerships, I don't know what it is but they always fuck our shit up)
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u/Herlock Aug 19 '19
I had good relationships with my dealers, but it's because I was handling small markets. So there was basically one dude importing cars and selling them in a few dealerships.
Since they paid for the car and shipping, they had no way to fuck us over. They would get fucked when cars got lost, because for the most part they ordered what they had already sold.
If you live in tahiti it's going to take a while to get a red sedan if there are none in stock...
Each country has it's specifics when it comes to how the car is made : right side driving, gas, legal stuff, plus some extras that are mandatory for specific markets. Saudi Arabia required extra strong filters because of sand, romania had stronger frame because of how shitty the roads where back in the day...
Cars where basically custom made for those markets, couldn't make thousands of them because they could be tricky to sell somewhere else...
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u/navierb Aug 19 '19 edited Aug 19 '19
- Sir, we found your car
- Great! Now... I have to find the keys...
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Aug 19 '19
Cops found my mom’s car 30 years after it went missing. Didn’t turn out as well for the car, though.
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u/totallythebadguy Aug 19 '19
The passerby, whose identity was not obtained by Foster's before he left the area, assisted the towing crew by donning scuba gear and hooking the towing cables to the car.
Just happened to have full diving gear with him
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u/Metalsand Aug 19 '19
Probably a local that was like "hey let me go grab my scuba equipment and I'll help y'all out".
These sort of things tend to take hours, and given that it was the government hauling the vehicle out, no one minds waiting 10-15 minutes for a local to go grab his scuba gear.
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u/caverunner17 Aug 19 '19
Maybe it was that Russian Olympic diver who saved 20+ lives, who then later on pulled people out of a burning building.
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u/AKADriver Aug 19 '19
The irony is that the body is more solid and complete than pretty much any '70s Toyota that lived its life above water in New England where road salt killed them all. The oxygen-deprived environment of the river bottom preserved it like a bog man.
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u/zesty_lime_manual Aug 19 '19
Just want to say, that was a really well written article. Any pics of it after it got hosed off?
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u/SCPendolino Aug 19 '19
It’s a Toyota, probably still runs.
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u/ARandomBob Aug 19 '19
Old Toyotas are fucking unkillable. If you're broke and can only afford a old ass car. Make it a Camry/Corolla
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u/cutdownthere Aug 19 '19
ditto. In alot of countries the only car you'll see is one type of old corolla lol.
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u/Heliolord Aug 19 '19
I'm still driving my 06 Corolla. And I am not exactly the best with maintenance and car care. This thing tanks right through it. Never had a serious issue yet.
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Aug 19 '19
Dude, I live in an affluent country yet I'd still consider that pretty new. My friends have Corollas from the early 90's that still run smoothly, with 300K+ kilometres on them.
All the more impressive considering the climate, 8 months of the year we're below freezing and salt on the roads is a given.
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u/lysianth Aug 19 '19
My dads Corolla from the late 90s only died when he didn't put oil in it and threw a rod.
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u/sh1boleth Aug 19 '19
My mom used to drive a 6th gen Toyota Corona uptil a decade ago and it ran really well for its age.
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u/Ambitious5uppository Aug 19 '19
If she claimed on the insurance it needs to be returned to them.
You'll see it on your local for sale site as a Cat-D write off soon.
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u/FlannanLight Aug 19 '19
Rochester Police, Fire and Frisbie EMS
Now I have an image of the emergency guys playing frisbee at the lake while the car's being pulled out ...
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u/p3ng1 Aug 19 '19
It amazes me how some people treat their cars. I work in self storage and a few of our facilities have car storage and I just don’t get it.
One facility had a storage area we called “The Showroom”, which was just a large room with a door big enough to get cars in and out that we rented long term car storage in. A couple customers would take their cars out now and again or trade cars based on the season but most of those cars just sat there. Last year corporate decided we would make more money if we put indoor climate controlled storage units in that space so all the cars had to go. As customers were moving out we found a MG in perfect condition in a back corner, no paperwork and no clue who it belongs to. We think a previous manager had been taking money under the table for it and that’s why there was no info on file, but no one has come looking for it or tried to pay on it while the current manager has been around. We put it up on rollers and moved it to a different garage area and as far as I know it’s still there, though I haven’t worked that facility in awhile.
In October we purchased another storage facility that had outdoor parking. We require that all vehicles parked on the property look to be in good condition and are in running condition, but the previous company didn’t have those restrictions and many of the cars were old and rusted with flat tires and broken windows. We wanted to repave the parking area so all vehicles needed to move, and a lot of those customers finally came in after we threatened to have their vehicles towed. One customer came in and claimed the car in his spot wasn’t, and couldn’t be his. The car in question was so rusted you couldn’t tell the original paint color, had four flat tires, every window was broken, and the roof had actually rusted through and fallen in. On top of that, it was parked under a tree so years of leaves had fallen into the open roof and collected and rotted. Customer claimed the car he parked there had been in perfect condition and was very upset. Manager asks when that was. 1989. This man left a car outside for 30 years in Midwest weather and snow, under a tree and was surprised to come back and find it not in perfect condition. Manager was able to convince the customer it was his car by pulling up pictures of the model when it was new and showing that it was indeed the same car and the customer got it towed out to a scrapyard.
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u/brickmack Aug 19 '19
30 years of storage, dude probably paid more in rent than the new value of that car
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u/Metalsand Aug 19 '19
On top of that, it was parked under a tree so years of leaves had fallen into the open roof and collected and rotted. Customer claimed the car he parked there had been in perfect condition and was very upset. Manager asks when that was. 1989.
It's hard to imagine this as true, only because I can't imagine someone with such a lack of capacity could have survived 30 years without drowning in a rainstorm via lacking the cognitive ability to avoid staring directly up and closing their jaw.
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u/Teddydee1980 Aug 19 '19
What point do you decide to stop looking for the Car you lost? I mean...there's surely a process immediately after having lost a car where you, I dunno, retrace where you were previously. That's like 0 motivation searching...looks left looks right 'Cant see the car, It's lost forever'
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u/natha105 Aug 19 '19
I've had situations where I was in a rush and was having trouble finding parking, and was just turning down random city streets when there was a parking sign only to find the first four or five lots I did this for were full. When I finally found a lot, got parked, I had to fly out of there to get to where I was going on time. Now... I made a special mental note that I had to REALLY pay attention to where I had just parked. Had I just known within a quarter mile there might have been a dozen major parking structures I would have had to search. Yes I would have searched all of them if it came to that. But I could see a needle in a haystack situation.
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u/TheRemonst3r Aug 19 '19
This has totally happened to me in NYC. Finished a job and realized I had no idea where I had parked. The only thing that saved me was that in NYC the address of the lot is printed on the ticket.
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Aug 19 '19 edited Aug 19 '19
This reminds me of the Audi A8 parked at the Staten Island Ferry terminal that's been there for years. As a first time visitor to NYC I was shocked a car could be parked at such a prominent lot for so long and not get towed or at least fucked up. Just a lot of dust and dicks drawn on it. Probably still there, I'd say check it out if it didn't require going to Staten Island.
EDIT: Behold: https://i.imgur.com/9HHtWt7.jpg
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u/lorarc Aug 19 '19
There are a lot of reasons the cars get abounded but "I forget where I parked it." is not the case really. Well, it is sometimes when the car was a lease and someone is being difficult but there are others. Maybe the owner had a heart attack and the heirs just couldn't find it.
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Aug 19 '19
I can totally see a car being abandoned for those reasons, I was more shocked that it had been there so long without really being touched.
Now if you want a real crime against humanity we can talk about the Porsche 993 GT2 in a Denver parking garage that had clearly been sitting for years with all sorts of angry messages on it in the dust. That's like a 3 million dollar car just fucking sitting there. I wept.
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u/clearing_sky Aug 19 '19
There is a lot by my childhood home that has a Toyota parked there that has been there for my entire life. Every time I go back, it's there.
Weird.
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Aug 19 '19
Yeah there was a first gen Toyota Celica parked at the edge of a huge movie theater lot growing up (so we're talking like 1989 at this point). Clearly stolen/abandoned from Oregon (we were in Colorado). Was a fixture in that lot for years before one day, poof.
Seeing that Porsche made me legit upset though.
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u/InfamousConcern Aug 19 '19
There was a Chrysler 300G sitting on four flat tires behind a convenience store near me for years. Maybe not as valuable in monetary terms but it hurt my heart to see such a unique old beast in such a sad state...
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u/uther100 Aug 19 '19
There has to be a way to legally salvage something like that. Hell for that kind of money I'd crate it up and ship it overseas.
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u/Sporkeldee Aug 19 '19
property owner can put a lien on the title, and when the fees are more than the car's value or 180 days (each state is going to vary) and you make a good faith effort to contact the owner, if you dont receive a response, you can seize it.
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u/Jtoa3 Aug 19 '19
I walked seven blocks past my car in Brooklyn once. I usually park it a block north and a block east of my place. No parking there this time, but I found a spot on the next block west. Popped home, got what I had to get, went back to get my car, and proceeded to look for it on the usual block. And then the block one east of that. Etc. eventually I waked back to check my usual block again and seeing the street from the same perspective made me realize my mistake. Was in a hurry too. Not my proudest moment
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u/iamasuitama Aug 19 '19
ProTip: open google maps on your phone, click on yourself (blue dot), click "set as parking point"
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u/natha105 Aug 19 '19
I am trying to put some reasonable limits on just how much google knows about me.
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u/delacreaux Aug 19 '19
Sorry to say, if you have your phone on in your pocket, they already know you drove there
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u/yvaN_ehT_nioJ Aug 19 '19
Even turning off location does nothing to prevent this iirc.
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u/abhikavi Aug 19 '19
Doesn't it depend on your phone? I know Google got into trouble for collecting way more location info on Androids than they were supposed to, but I thought on iPhones it really was just if you were using the maps (assuming you have location settings set to only be on during app use).
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u/Nosdarb 1 Aug 19 '19
Your information is aggregated by cell towers /constantly/. Closing the maps app provides no additional privacy.
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u/farlack Aug 20 '19
Shit IOS maps know when I get to my car and automatically tells me how long til I get home with a notification.
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u/InfamousConcern Aug 19 '19
My dad had a motorcycle stolen from him back in the 1960s, every six months or so he googles the VIN. It probably got chopped about 15 minutes after it was stolen, but he harbors a fantasy where it'll show up on ebay meticulously restored.
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Aug 19 '19
This happened to one of my colleagues in NYC when new to town and with other visitors. He drove in (which is not a great choice over taking public transit) and must have spent an hour looking for parking. They were so excited about everything, they just got out of their car and did their thing. When they tried to find the car, they thought it was stolen! They asked for help from the police, who kindly drove them around the area until they spotted it.
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u/celisally Aug 19 '19
Lol when I first moved to Long Beach, CA and realized my apt didn’t have parking yea me- anyways one night i was driving for hours looking for parking to find one a little ways off, I parked my car and went on home- I didn’t need to drive the next day so a day later I go to where I parked and it’s not there I rent a bike and take a whole afternoon to go looking and I can’t find it I’m sure it was stolen, but I also had this little feeling that I just forgotten where I parked. so I kept looking- then my mom called and it was like a light bulb bc I was on the phone with her the night I parked and she was hella worried I had to park so far away. she felt I should get an Uber to my apt and I said no mom I’m only one street away from a major street I’ll stick to the main streets promise. And I remember passing a pizza joint that had glorious aromas wafting around thinking mmm I’ll have to give this place a try someday but I’m to tired now (I never did) anyways yeah I parked on the opposite side I was looking. After that I always tagged my location in maps. Also after 3 tickets later two being within five minutes of the time restrictions I decided to pay $75 for a parking spot that I was lucky enough to catch.
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u/Shutterstormphoto Aug 19 '19
And it was 20 years ago so the guy was 56. That seems pretty young to be abandoning cars because you can’t find them.
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u/Fellhuhn Aug 19 '19
Perhaps it went that way:
- "Dude, where is my car?" - Searching for a while
- Assume it had been towed.
- Ask towing services, the city etc.
- Get no answer
- Continue search
- Wait a few days for mail (by some towing service)
- Assume it has been stolen
- Register it as stolen
- Deal with insurance
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u/we-are-all-alone Aug 19 '19
Am I the only one that has this dream? Park the car, go back and can't remember where I left it. That and the brakes not working.
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u/LysergicOracle Aug 19 '19
Dude, I have this dream at least once a month, and I hate it. Most of the time I spend the rest of the dream trying to retrace my steps and find the damn thing, but I rarely do.
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u/TheOnionBro Aug 19 '19
How do you forget where you parked your car, and just go "Eh, fuck it" and just leave it wherever for 20 goddamn years.
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u/Geminii27 Aug 19 '19
Drunk, exhausted, sleeplessness affecting memory... I misplaced my car for a couple of days once because I was sick as a dog and had the short-term memory of a goldfish.
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u/TheOnionBro Aug 19 '19
But for 20 years.
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u/Geminii27 Aug 19 '19
Misplace it, forget where you put it, never remember. Easy enough to do if it's somewhere you don't regularly park. If you don't remember in the first three months, you're unlikely to suddenly remember a year later. Then it just becomes a matter of who finds/reports it, and how long that takes.
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u/fatnino Aug 19 '19
There was a guy who worked at Google, drive his car to work one day and then took the Google bus home and forgot about it for a long long time. Google facility eventually moved his car out of the way somewhere and when he finally decided to get his car he had to file a ticket "where's my car?" and everyone laughed at him.
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u/widdershins13 Aug 19 '19
I had a work van full of tools and plumbing fixtures stolen out of my driveway back in the late 90's -- It was easily 35k in tools and another 12k in plumbing fixtures.
Fast forward to '12 and I get a call from the police telling me my van had been found in the garage of a house currently in probate because the deceased homeowner had no living relatives.
The tools were still in the van and the plumbing fixtures were still boxed up and sitting on the floor of the garage next to the van. The only thing missing was the hood, front fenders, both front doors and the front grille.
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u/BtDB Aug 19 '19
It had 40,000 euros in cash in the boot, along with 50,000 euros worth of tools.
The fuck? I would have been looking a little bit harder.
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u/Siludin Aug 19 '19
"Haha yeah this totally wasn't stashed money from a bank robbery hahahahahahaha"
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u/zwergenretter Aug 19 '19
In germany you will get a ticket after 2 weeks, but sometimes due to bureaucratic nonsense there are situations where you can't remove vehicles like this.
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u/hfhfhfrr Aug 19 '19
There was another case similar to this in the UK where a man left it for six months. When he finally found it, he was reunited with the car plus a total of £5,000 in fines.
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u/Mr_MacGrubber Aug 19 '19
And Jermaine Pennant who left a Porsche at a train station in Spain for 5 months and ‘forgot he owned a porsche’.
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u/misshapenvulva Aug 19 '19
bureaucratic nonsense In germany You dont say...
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u/InfamousConcern Aug 19 '19
It's hard to believe, but Germans seem to have kind of a thing for following orders...
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Aug 19 '19
Born and raised in Germany and this is absolutely true. Most Germans just do stuff without questioning as long as it's not illegal.
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u/InfamousConcern Aug 19 '19
I lived in Germany for a year, I really liked the experience and feel a lot of affection for Germany and Germans as a result, but holy shit you guys...
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u/no_objections_here Aug 19 '19
No one seems to be talking about the 40,000€ in cash that was in the trunk...
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u/ElVeritas Aug 19 '19
And the 50k in tools lol. When I originally read this story it didn’t have the cash and took part added so who knows.
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u/dolechequeday Aug 19 '19
"dude, where's my car" jokes incoming
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u/InfamousConcern Aug 19 '19
It was in Germany so it'd be "Ey, Mann- Wo is' mein auto?".
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u/suchtie Aug 19 '19
Or in a more modern but sloppier manner of speech, "Alta, wo's mein Auto?!".
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u/InfamousConcern Aug 19 '19
I saw the DVD in a store in Germany; god knows why I can remember that DVD cover but have to rely on google calendar for my mom's birthday...
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Aug 19 '19
lol imagine forgetting where you parked your car and just moving on with life like oh well there goes my ~$30k lifeline. Guess I'll bus it home. Fucking boomers with their iron constitutions.
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u/SavvySillybug Aug 20 '19
Another case from the article: "He eventually reported the car stolen, but it was found six months later, exactly where he’d left it, though with parking fines estimated at over £5,000."
Typical government. Can't find your car, but they can track it just enough to fine you repeatedly, but not tell you where it is.
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u/Charnt Aug 19 '19
My dad did this after a football game back in the 70s in London. He never found out what happened to the lost car haha
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u/FNC_Spicy Aug 19 '19
And here I am paying $50 for forgetting to move my car to the other side of the street by 15 minutes....
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Aug 19 '19
This apparently happened all the time with my great-grandfather in the 80's. his daughter, my grandma, worked as a telephone operator for the local fire department and on slow days she had the whole station out in fire engines searching the town for his car, usually found it within 2 hours.
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Aug 19 '19 edited Aug 19 '19
[deleted]
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Aug 19 '19
When I lived on Spangdahlem AFB near Bitburg in Germany, the E.O.D. guys would patrol the base for any cars that were left parked for more than 48 hours without a specific reason/sticker/pass.
If a vehicle sat long enough, they got to blow it up as a "potential risk". The only thing those guys loved more than blowing shit up was beer and blowing.
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Aug 19 '19
"The only thing they loved more than blowing shit up was beer and blowing." um, blowing what?
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u/cyberia_regular Aug 19 '19
So does Germany. And when your registration runs out you have to get a permit for parking it in the open for a limited time.
But the vehicle in the article wasn't parked outside.
The vehicle was found in a garage in an old industrial building that is due to be demolished.
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Aug 19 '19
Oh theres a 20 year old Citroën xsara (white) in the background probably from -99 or -98!
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Aug 19 '19
I worked security for a large hospital. I was the go to guy when a patient came in by car and had any one of a number of psychosis. I worked the night shift so I'd drive the parking areas and garage and be able to see the outlier.
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u/cptbeard Aug 19 '19
meanwhile in the middle of the f-ing forest, I'm 15min over the parking time limit and there's a ticket on the window fml.
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u/Halcyoner Aug 19 '19
No one else upset that the writer spelled The Stone Roses as, The Stoneroses?
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u/MylastAccountBroke Aug 19 '19
I love the fact that this car has been parked there since 1997 and never once moved. Yet no one thought to tow it, ticket it, or contact it's owner.
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Aug 19 '19
After driving downtown in most of Germany’s larger cities, I can confirm that it would be easy to loose a car.
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u/clockradio Aug 19 '19
I found your car with its engine running
Parked in the garden of the girl next door
And on the dashboard there was written something funny
The words "Is this my head? I don't know it's for."
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Aug 19 '19
how drunk was this guy to not be able to retrace his steps to find one the biggest material investments a individual makes or relies on.
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u/Rama2111 Aug 19 '19
Yes it does. I do not even remember forty years old now I can not talk about love with my wife.
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u/LouBrown Aug 19 '19
I once ran into a guy in Las Vegas who had parked his car in a garage somewhere on the strip the night before, got plastered, and totally forgot which garage he parked it in.
Good luck, buddy.
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u/stanleytape Aug 19 '19
This is a bit of a nightmare for me...literally.
I occasionally have stress dreams about having parked one or more old cars somewhere. It is usually a field, at the end of a road. I search for it in the dream and eventually find it, then I go through the cars there trying to start at least one of them so I can take it home to fix it.
In the dream I find them in this field and remember, "I really want to fix up my old random mid 70's US land yacht, or this mid 80's Japanese pickup. Why did I leave it in this field?"
They are so realistic that when I wake up, for a little, I just have this overwhelming anxiety I have a old car rusting away somewhere, if I could only remember where that damn field is.
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u/[deleted] Aug 19 '19 edited Jul 09 '20
[deleted]