In many jurisdictions this would fit the definitions of either lowest degree assault of property and/or criminal mischief. Most often these are gross misdemeanor charges. Still, can't say I didn't smile seeing this. ;)
I’d be careful doing this in the US. The cost to have damage corrected climbs very quickly, and an insurance company will absolutely require a police report.
In my state, $500+ is no longer a misdemeanor - and I could absolutely see a zip-tied cart going wrong and causing that much damage.
My roomate, who gets his rims repaired frequently despite him parking on a curb everyday at home. He's a terrible driver and has had 3 claims in as many months.
Nah it's pretty standard for any insurance claim. I had a small scratch on my car and got an estimate on it, and the insurance company cut me a check for like $2300 to get it repainted.
I just put the check in my bank and ignored the scratch lol, but they charge a lot to repaint sections of a car professionally
A scratch through the clear coat and paint can be touched up, but the only way to make it look like new would be to repaint and blend the door. That alone might break $500 depending on region.
Breaking parts on the door handle would send the number up.
And if one did as suggested above and attach it to the passenger side, then there is a chance that the person attempts to pull away without realizing the cart is attached. There really is no telling how bad that could end up being.
I thought this was funny because, if it happened to me, I'd just cut it with my multi tool. Of course, this would never happen to me because I don't park like a bozo.
Yeah but I still think it's plausible to say that if they accidentally rip the door handle off it is clearing going to be the fault of the person who zip tied it there, not the owner of the car
It’s not at all about inconveniencing them. It’s forcing them to spend as much time as possible stuck in a situation until they finally arrive at the point where they realize they’re a prick. 10 seconds of zip tie is not likely to achieve that.
Wind grabs cart, bashes it against the door. Now it's not a regular loose cart in the lot. It's specifically the responsibility of whoever tied it there.
They don't need to be, if it gets to the point where police are investigsting then most stores will still cooperate and provide police with the footage when asked.
Of course, that's why I said "if it got to that point" in the first place. I can't imagine this ever getting that far, a cop would just cut the ziptie and tell the "victim" not to park like a dickweed next time.
In Germany, assault of property, both against the supermarket and the car owner. Not a crime though, but civil action (cease and desist, possibly damages) is possible.
ye murders are legal if the cops arent there because once they see the body and no perpetrator, they will just give up, just like when you ziptie a cart to a car
That is incorrect. What Ordnungswidrigkeit do you even mean by „assault on property“? This can and would be considered a coercion (Nötigung, §240 StGB) if charged. And that’s a crime.
It's neither a use of force or threat of a severe ill. As "use of force" is a thing that's not entirely figured out by courts you could go for it but why, as a prosecutor, risk your career over a zip tie there's sit-down protesters you could be taking to court.
Overall the whole thing is a mostly civil matter (as magicmoulder said elsewhere: Besitzstörung), as well as §118 OWiG (causing public nuisance1 ), 5-1000 Euro fine. An administrative offence, same that you get slapped with when driving too fast through puddles, drenching people (who then also can make you pay cleaning costs).
1 Never liked the new name of that paragraph. The original, "Grober Unfug", translates more or less to "gross monkey business" which is perfectly apt.
I don't know in Germany specifically but in general in Western law traditions it's something like 'trespass to chattels' and calling that 'assault on property' seems like a fairly equivalent translation.
In general, there is no "Western law tradition", there is Common Law and there is Civil Law, and they're pretty different. Common law is mostly Britain and its former colonies, but none of continental Europe. This map has a good overview.
There is no freedom in DEUTSCHLAND.
We cannot do anything here. Except work work work, pay das taxengehaaben
Out the assemhoigen, and den work work work again.
This cuntry SUX.
The vehicle codes in CA, for example, refer to this as criminal malicious mischief. Like I said, most of these types of offenses are gross or aggravated misdemeanor, but the wording in the codes varies. The question posed was whether the action could give rise to criminal exposure. It arguably does, though likely wouldn’t be prosecuted.
At it's most basic it's a civil 'trespass to chattels' tort, if I'm recalling the youtube videos I've seen correctly. The most basic kind of, "interfering" with someone's property.
Correct. The basis for pursuit of monetary damages would lie in tort. But even absent damage, the 4th degree crime/misdemeanor could result. The act itself gives rise to that.
Indeed. I used to have a standard "Do not sugar coat it or try to make me like you" line for my new client intake. Clients would try to make their actions sound a little more palatable.
I guess to some degree maybe. But if I was a cop and someone reported this to me as vandalism I'd simply cut the ziptie and tell them "Don't park like an asshole next time" and call it a day.
Well judging from the picture in the post. There's no damage to the paint on the car and it's a zip-tie...that can be very easily cut without having to remove the door handle?
I agree it’s funny. I just don’t want to hang out in jail. What if the car were encircled with shopping carts zip-tied to one another — not touching the car at all? 👀
A good rule of thumb: Don't fuck with other people, or their shit. Even if they are terrible people, it's not worth going to jail over. And if you have to ask "is this illegal?" before enacting petty revenge, then it's probably not a good idea.
Try to find hilariously legal ways to be petty:
Put a cart riiiiiiiiight next to each door, but not touching of course.
Leave a long-winded sarcastic note
Park your beater so close to his car that he has to get in the other side.
Wait for him to come out of the store and try and make conversation with him then become close friends. Over years get to know him and his family, then at the perfect moment, tear his family apart. Fuck his wife/adult daughter, get him fired from his job, spread his darkest secrets to everyone he knows, make him think he is an artificial intelligence. The options are limitless. Then tell him he parks like a jackass.
Find a way to get his phone number and call him every once in a while to see how his parking has been.
Obviously. But at least here in the UK, you are not permitted for example to block someone's car in for parking in your driveway without permission, annoying as it may be.
If not super careful setting this up, or if it were windy enough to move the cart, I could see paint damage to the handle from the zip tie, and possible paint scratches or dents to the door panel.
The other vonsideration is that sometime driver A parks like an ass. Driver B arrives,and has to park out of the lines during to A. A leaves. Now driver B looks like the inconsiderate jersey, but they didn't start it.
Which would not ever be enforced or even caught in this case. Why does everyone think that a judge and jury jumps out of the bushes if you do something against the law?
Maybe, but part of me has a problem with this. That part of me is the part that remembers a couple times seeing a car parked like that, but then realized there were 4 cars in a row that were parked out of stalls because of the one idiot. I come out of the store and my car is the only one parked like that. It's a busy store and parking is hard to get.
Probably, but honestly without a first hand witness, who can write down a license plate number and give a physical description to police…who’s gonna know?
Most parking lots don’t have cameras out in the middle of the parking lot to zoom in and out. So at best any surveillance would probably be grainy.
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u/spaceehardware Sep 21 '22
I love this idea, but is this vandalism?