You Gotta Be Nuts to Own a Car in the Big Apple

The next time you’re stuck in traffic, like a fly in molasses on that L.A. freeway, just repeat this simple mantra: “I’m lucky. I could be driving or parking a car in New York City.”

When it comes to auto woes, Los Angeles has nothing on the Big Apple.

During the last two years, my car has been vandalized six times. On each occasion, it was parked in front of our apartment or a block away, in an affluent Manhattan neighborhood that is relatively free of major crime.

Thousands of people spend a fortune to live and play on the Upper West Side. But if you park your car on the streets here, you’re asking for it.

“We’ve had visitors,” my wife announces with each new incident. By now, it’s a New York street game, like stickball. Who can predict the next visit?

We’ve seen it all, from pilfered tape decks and broken aerials to the very latest in auto crime--a stolen air bag. We’ve had door locks picked and our glove box pried open. Graffiti goons have carved scratches on the hood of our Honda, and someone recently painted “Die Now” in ketchup on the windshield.

“Not bad,” said a beat cop when I complained about six auto break-ins in 24 months. “That’s about two, three incidents a year. Sounds pretty normal.”

In other words, why get excited? Waking up to a slashed tire is as New York as you can get--like hot dogs at Nathan’s or panhandlers on a downtown train. You haven’t lived until you find a snowdrift in your back seat, thanks to some moron who broke the rear window during a blizzard, just for laughs. You don’t know from agita until your battery shows up in a Brooklyn chop shop.

Sure, Los Angeles has auto burglaries. There were 54,084 reported last year, with a major jump in the West Valley. But overall there was a citywide decline of 5.2%, according to police. New York, meanwhile, reported 55,865 auto burglaries in 1993, the last year figures are available. The city listed stolen auto parts separately--some 48,722 incidents--thus bringing the grand total to 104,587 auto break-ins.

Bad news for drivers, you’d think. Yet many New Yorkers would shrug their shoulders and say: “Hell, at least those people found parking spaces.”

Think you’ve got a legal spot on the street? Read those confusing, multitiered signs again, pal: Chances are you don’t. The laws governing residential automobile parking in this town are cockamamie beyond belief.

Here’s how they work:

On Mondays and Fridays, parking is forbidden on one side of the street for three hours because of street sweeping. The same rule applies to the opposite side of the street on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Rules are suspended on Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays, along with a handful of religious holidays, some so obscure that only the most devout know of them. When the law is in effect, you can double-park your car on the legal side of the street during the hours of cleaning, but only if you leave a note on the dashboard with your address.

Three hours later, when the street sweeping is done, you can re-park your car on the newly cleaned side of the street, if space is available. Got it?

The city calls this “alternate side of the street parking” and it, too, is a game. After a fistful of $55 parking tickets and months of early morning headaches, you’ll get the hang of it. By then, you’ll be ready for the ultimate test: bailing your car out of the city pound after some jerk in jumpsuit decides you’re too close to a fire hydrant and tows you away.

“Our city can kick your city’s ass” was New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s choice from a list of slogans proposed to him during a recent appearance on the David Letterman show. And that’s just what you’ll want to do when you finally get your car back. After hours of screaming at bureaucrats over long-forgotten tickets, you’ll be grateful to fork over $500 in fines and bounce home on a pothole-riddled street.

New Yorkers love to talk about how tough they are. But anyone who chooses to keep a car in this town is nuts, present company included. Indeed, people are warned about this when they arrive in Manhattan. Forget owning a car, they’re told. It’s not worth it, unless you pay $400 monthly for a garage.

Several years ago, a local newspaper graphically demonstrated the fate of a car parked legally but unattended for several days on the Upper West Side. With photographers and reporters watching from across the street, the auto was systematically plundered until little was left but the shell and a few parts.

None of this was particularly surprising. So why keep a car?

Oddly, it has something to do with mental health. Nobody wants to feel trapped in the big city, and there are advantages to having an auto. You can escape to countryside in less than 30 minutes, and Cape Cod is only four hours away. Our car is paid for, and my wife drives to work, so I guess we’re stuck with it.

You learn to cope. Anxious about security, thousands buy obnoxious car alarms. It takes little to trigger them, and they frequently go off in waves, sometimes at 3 a.m. It’s not uncommon for three to be shrieking at once.

“No Air Bag. No Radio. No Nothing.”

That’s the crude, handwritten sign I’ve taped to the window of our auto. Friends joke that I should write it in several languages, but it probably won’t make much of a difference. Consider the following chronology:

In August, 1992, my wife and I buy a new Honda Accord and promptly drive it to Cambridge, Mass., where we--and the car--spend a quiet, crime-free school year. We return to New York City 10 months later, and the fun begins.

August, 1993: The passenger window is smashed and our glove box is looted.

September, 1993: The lock is picked, our trunk is burglarized.

February, 1994: The rear window is smashed during an epic snowstorm.

July, 1994: The lock is picked, our stereo tape deck is stolen.

March, 1995: The lock is picked, our air bag is stolen.

June, 1995: The rear windshield is smashed by vandals.

Like many victims, our first reaction was to blame ourselves. If we had left the glove box open, it wouldn’t be a target. If we had used the Club, the air bag would still be there. After awhile, though, you realize how absurd this is. If you’re going to play the auto game, get tough. And do it without illusions.

“I don’t know, if I were you I’d be a little crazy,” an insurance claims adjuster says when I ask him to run down the list of our incidents. “Maybe it’s time for you guys to consider another car strategy entirely.”

Easier said than done. I imagine we could join the ranks of New Yorkers who simply give up, sell their autos and spend $300 each weekend renting cars. It all comes down to dollars and cents: Many people here factor two or three break-ins a year into the cost of keeping an auto, and weigh that against the money needed to rent. Others just go without an automobile, period.

It’s tempting, but then we’d miss out on some of New York’s zanier moments. Like the time our air bag was stolen and my wife, incredibly, convinced me that she had “loaned” it to neighbors for a cross-country drive. As it turns out, she didn’t want to upset me right away, and broke the bad news 10 days later.

We never replaced the air bag, and it’s a good thing. Several weeks ago, I ran a red light and a cop quickly pulled up beside me. He was halfway through a lecture on safety when he suddenly noticed the huge concave gap in our steering wheel. It was like looking at a corpse missing some vital organs.

“What’s that? “ he asked with awe. “I’ve never seen one of those.”

Was it the novelty--the sheer lunacy of it all--that got me out of the ticket? I can only guess, but now there’s relief in sight. Next week, my wife and I are going on vacation and the car will be safe and sound. After two years of slings and arrows, we’re finally bringing it into a body shop for major repairs. When we return to New York, the auto will be pristine again. We’ll make a brand new start of it--and get ready for more visitors.

. . .A local newspaper graphically demonstrated the fate of a car parked legally but unattended for several days. . . . The auto was systematically plundered until little was left. . . .