Auto thefts at the carwash

It was a partly cloudy morning with rain forecasted later in the day.  My carwash routine, which occurs once a month on average, involves dropping my car at the carwash and picking it up after I've finished my workout.  This is a convenient process as I don't have to wait for my car while it's being washed, and I take advantage of the 20% gym discount they offer; $9.99 for the basic wash after discount.

It was a predictably slow day at the carwash because of the rain forecast, and when I returned to pick up my car, no one was within range.  It would be a mind bogglingly simple task for an auto thief to waltz to my car in plain view, take the keys that were placed on the front driver's side tire and gingerly drive away (see picture below).

This begs the question why car thiefs use sophisticated methods to break into cars when they can prowl just about any carwash in the U.S. and have the keys virtually handed to them.

Not all car owners (like me) stick around while their car is being worked on.  At any given moment, even in light traffic, there are multiple cars parked waiting to be picked up.  One could even walk up to an employee, hand a bogus slip along with a couple of dollars of tip and drive away with someone else's car.  It's as easy as 1-2-3, or maybe I'm missing something here?  I scoured Google for car thefts at carwashes, and I found lots of articles on burglarizing carwashes, but no auto thefts similar to what I've described here.  I believe I'm onto something groundbreaking.

Here's a YouTube video of an ingenius car theft at a "Do it yourself" carwash.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmARSgUWslY



My car at the carwash, exactly how I found it after my workout - My keys are on the tire