cars

Gone in 90 Seconds in Clarendon

By ARLnow.com

(Updated at 3:30 p.m.) How quickly do you think your car would get stolen if you left it directly outside a 24-hour store, on the side of a busy Clarendon street, with the keys still in the door?

Try 90 seconds, according to a woman whose Mitsubishi Eclipse was stolen from outside the 7-Eleven at 3000 Washington Boulevard.

The woman, who we will call “Lucy,” said she and a companion were “in a big rush” when they ran into the store, leaving the keys hanging from the driver’s side door.

“Stupid move on our part, but it was freezing and we ran in for literally 90 seconds,” Lucy wrote in an email. “We were running late and it was a dumb mistake.”

Lucy came out of the store, saw that the car was gone and called the police. The police took a report, but have so far not been able to locate the stolen car.

“[The] good news is we’re fully insured and no one was hurt,” Lucy wrote. “Some valuables in the car, but all replaceable. No sighting by anyone on who stole the car as it probably just looked like an owner since they had the keys.”

Despite being the victim of a crime, Lucy has been able to find humor in the situation. She described her stolen two-door Mitsubishi as “a total s–t car” and noted that “we’re not upset about it… it’s actually sort of funny.”

Lucy added that she hopes others will learn from her dumb mistake.

“We just let our guard down living in the bubble of safe Arlington and want to send out a warning for others,” she wrote. “We’re city folk and only recently joined the more suburban scene (and love it). But, this was a reminder to not be idiots since crime can happen anywhere.”

We’re Number One… For Traffic Congestion

By ARLnow.com

The Washington metro area is tied with Chicago for having the country’s most congested roads.

According to a new study, auto commuters in Washington and Chicago spend about 70 hours — nearly three whole days — of extra time in the car thanks to traffic. We beat out the famously congested Los Angeles area, where commuters only spend 63 extra hours in the car each year.

Washington also ranked #1 for “fuel wasted per peak auto commuter” and #2 for “commuter stress” and “cost of delay per peak hour auto commuter” (at $1,555 per year).

In the wake of the study’s release, the Northern Virginia Transportation Alliance, a group that supports additional spending on highway capacity and other transportation projects, issued a snarky press release “congratulating” the region for the distinction.

“Persistence pays off!” the Alliance proclaimed. “Years of state fiscal neglect and local opposition to planner’s priorities have finally moved the Commonwealth’s economic engine, Northern Virginia, to the top of the congestion-delay heap.”

The news comes less than two weeks after Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) announced plans to roll out billions in additional transportation spending.

Researchers with the Texas Transportation Institute, which conducted the study, came up with a number of general strategies to help alleviate traffic congestion, including:

  • “Get as much use as possible out of the transportation system we have.”
  • “Add roadway and public transportation capacity in the places where it is needed most.”
  • “Change our patterns, employing ideas like ridesharing and flexible work times to avoid traditional ‘rush hours.'”
  • “Provide more choices, such as alternate routes, telecommuting and toll lanes for faster and more reliable trips.”
  • “Diversify land development patterns, to make walking, biking and mass transit more practical.”
  • “Adopt realistic expectations, recognizing for instance that large urban areas are going to be congested, but they don’t have to stay that way all day long.”

Crime Report: Lots of Larcenies from Auto

By ARLnow.com

It was an especially busy week for thieves in Arlington County. At least 32 cars were broken into in the past seven days, according to the latest Arlington County crime report.

LARCENY FROM AUTO (SERIES) 01/06/11, 3200 block of Wilson Boulevard. On January 6 between 8 pm an 9 pm, an unknown subject broke into at least four vehicles in the same area. Various items were stolen. There are no known suspects.

LARCENY FROM AUTO (SERIES) 01/08/11, 1000 block of Arlington Boulevard. Between 8 pm on January 7, and 6 am on January 8, an unknown subject broke into at least seven vehicles in the same area. Various items were stolen. There are no known suspects.

LARCENY FROM AUTO (SERIES) 01/08/11, 800 block of N. McKinley Street. Between 11 pm on January 7, and noon on January 8, an unknown subject broke into at least three vehicles on the block. Various tools were stolen. There is no suspect description.

LARCENY FROM AUTO (SERIES) 01/08/11, 200 block of N. Granada Street and the 300 block of N. Edison Street. Between 10:30 pm on January 7, and 10 am on January 8, an unknown subject entered at least four unlocked vehicles in the same area. Various items were stolen. There are no known suspects.

LARCENY FROM AUTO (SERIES) 01/10/11, 5200 blocks of S. 10th Place and S. 11th Street, and the 1000 block of S. Edison Street. On January 10 between midnight and 7 am, an unknown subject broke into at least ten vehicles in the same area. Various items were stolen. There are no known suspects.

LARCENY FROM AUTO (SERIES) 01/11/11, 4900 block of Chesterfield Road. On January 11 between 3 pm and 5:30 pm, an unknown subject broke into at least two vehicles in the same parking lot. Various items were stolen. There are no known suspects.

LARCENY FROM AUTO (SERIES) 01/11/11, 1400 block of N. Quincy Street. On January 11 between 8 pm and 10 pm, an unknown subject broke into at least two vehicles in the same area. Various items were stolen. There is no suspect description.

The rest of the report, including a man who’s accused of pulling a gun on a tow truck driver because he “thought” his car was being towed, after the jump.

(more…)

Morning Poll: License Plate Readers

By ARLnow.com

Those cameras mounted on the back of some Arlington police cruisers are actually quite effective at catching criminals, it turns out.

Arlington Police make at least one arrest per day thanks to the cameras, which snap photos of passing license plates and compare them to a database of stolen cars and wanted subjects. According to an article that appeared in the Los Angeles Times earlier this week, the cameras can process up to 100,000 license plates per hour.

“It’s quick and efficient,” Arlington police Capt. Kevin Reardon told the Times.

Not everybody supports the cameras, however. Privacy watchdogs have raised questions about whether the technology can be abused or used to keep tabs on innocent people.

What do you think?


McDonnell: “Looking At” Hybrid HOV Exemption

By ARLnow.com

On WTOP’s Ask the Governor program this morning, Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell was asked about the state law that allows vehicles with clean fuel license plates (like hybrids) to travel on HOV lanes without occupancy restrictions.

“Is there any point at which that will formally and permanently be canceled?” a caller asked the governor, adding that single-occupant hybrids “clog up” the HOV lanes during rush hour.

McDonnell, who signed a one-year extension of the law in March, noted that the law was “put in place in previous administrations… to create an incentive for using fuel-efficient cars.”

McDonnell said the exemption, which expires on June 30, 2011, will be examined as part of his administration’s transportation effort.

“The overall idea behind these… high occupancy lanes is to reduce congestion, and one person in a car doesn’t do that,” McDonnell said. “It’s part of one of the overall things that we’re looking at in the Department of Transportation in order to get people moving faster. Being able to have more people in one vehicle, or in rail or other modalities, is part of the solution.”

Car-Free Diet Skeptics Challenge Returns For Second Year

By ARLnow.com

A county-sponsored contest designed to help ween residents out of their cars and onto bikes and transit will return for an encore in 2011.

The Car-Free Diet Skeptics Challenge will begin accepting video applications on Jan. 3. The contest, organized by Arlington County Commuter Services, is seeking two drivers who are skeptical about ditching their cars but willing to try it out for 30 days.

Applications will be accepted from Jan. 3 to Feb. 28. In addition to submitting a 30 second to two minute YouTube video, would-be skeptics will be asked to fill out an application, provide photos, and answer questions about why they think they’re the county’s biggest car-free skeptic.

The contestants will be chosen in March by a combination of online voting and scoring by a panel of judges.

Each contestant selected this year will receive a new bike and accessories, hats and t-shirts, maps and transit schedules, a pre-loaded SmarTrip card, a one month membership to Capital Bikeshare and a Flip video camera. The “winner” selected at the end of the contest will get 12 months worth of free transit, a gift certificate to a running store, a one-year membership to Capital Bikeshare and a one year Zipcar membership.

Last year’s contest followed Ross and Todd (pictured), who tracked their car-free progress on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, as well as on their own personal blogs.

Watch Out for the Sinkhole on Columbia Pike

By ARLnow.com

It’s now surrounded by a small army of orange barrels, but this sinkhole on Columbia Pike at the intersection with South Wakefield Street claimed at least one car’s muffler this morning.

Heavy rains apparently caused the patched-up section of roadway to sink, while the older, existing road stayed at the same level. So it must have been quite the jolt when one driver we talked to hit it at full speed, causing his muffler to fly off.

The barrels are currently blocking the left-hand lane of westbound Columbia Pike.

Morning Notes

By ARLnow.com

Happy World Car Free Day — As mentioned earlier, it’s Car Free Day, the day in which car commuters are encouraged to consider alternatives to driving solo to work. Thousands of people in the DC area have signed a pledge to keep their car at home today, according to the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments. If leaving the car at home doesn’t sound fun enough on its own merits, there will be a Car Free Day party from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. at the Capital Bikeshare station at Crystal Drive and 23rd Street in Crystal City.

Arlington Issues Hundreds of Texting Citations — According to the Washington Examiner, Arlington County police issued 131 citations for texting while driving during the first half of the year. Texting while driving is illegal in Virginia, D.C. and Maryland.

McCain Talks Tea Party At Murray Fundraiser — Sen. John McCain headlined a fundraiser for local Republican congressional candidate Patrick Murray on Monday. While speaking to Murray donors, McCain opined about the Tea Party movement, saying the “anger and frustration” of Tea Party members “justified.” McCain said Murray is someone who would listen to the Tea Party. More from Examiner.com.

Flickr pool photo by Chris Rief