Smash and Grab

I am not easily spooked by stories of crime in South Africa. On the other hand, you tend to hear a lot of them. In our 11 years of living here, I’ve been the victim to a lot less crime than I was in Toronto where my car would get broken into about every 3 months. Here… ummmm… a car radio was once stolen from a car parked outside our house. Thing is, if/when something does happen to you in South Africa, it’s not usually done by half measure.

Witness this weekend’s fatal car hijacking of a Swedish woman on her honeymoon in Cape Town with her husband. They were driving in a township where there had just been mass riots and that is a fairly rough part of town… it was risky and they knew it. This kind of event is pretty rare in Cape Town – but a lot more common in Johannesburg and Pretoria. When something like this does happen in touristy Cape Town, it makes headlines everywhere – and it makes you think a bit…

All this brings me to my decision to add “smash and grab” film to all the windows in the vehicle as, on balance, we are going to some dodgy parts of Africa and we’re going to clearly stand out as tourists. The “smash and grab” window film will stop the car windows from shattering if someone throws bricks, boots or ball peen hammers at them – and, bonus, it’s darkly tinted which should keep the car a little cooler under the Kalahari sun. And by reducing visibility to inside the car, it should help to reduce the temptation to steal our dirty laundry. The window film is branded “Defcon” – somewhat alarmist even by South African security marketing standards.

The only downside that I can see is that I may be mistaken for a pimp and that’ll start to deplete the bribery budget.