Anti-Theft Device

If You Don’t Want Your Car Stolen, Make It Pink
By FREAKONOMICS (New York Times, 7/12/10)

New research from the Netherlands finds that thieves are less likely to steal brightly colored cars because of their lower resale value. If you really want to ensure your car isn’t stolen, go pink. Of the 109 pink cars in the research sample, none were stolen.

“An uncommon car color may be at least as good (as an) expensive car security device,” writes (the study's author.)

Isn't the danger of getting caught also raised by stealing a car whose loud color is its own BOLO (Be On the LookOut) police broadcast?

Steve used to know someone with a pink Beetle...

Looking back, he sincerely wishes he never had.

Although Emily claimed to be shy, her car screamed, "Look at me!"

They met in a Los Angeles hit music radio station, an atmosphere bristling with major-league egos expressed through rapid and clever word play, often charged with sexual innuendo. And as a relatively soft-spoken person who wouldn't ever speak up first, Emily was out-gunned verbally & couldn't keep up... But really more sly than shy.

In L.A., where eveyone says something with their cars, a hot pink bug with her name on the license plate was making a scream for attention. And while some interpreted her passive non-responsive pose as lack of intelligence, she was soaking in all the attention she could and making judgments about how to manipulate interests to get what she wanted... Which might change, but her control didn't.

Giving back or withholding attention was her gravity... The way she kept various resources in orbit. Not too close. Not too far... But at whatever distance kept them interested enough to remain usable.

Steve wasn't hip, slick, cool or handsome... Creative, effective and prolific enough to have reached the top, and already thoroughly used, he was one of the people who made up the fun things that made the station distinctive, and made co-workers very rich and more famous.

Though he played them well, few roles in which L.A. cast Steve made him happier... Emily just made him more likely to be on the lookout.