A new way to get to the airport

[davidn]

Evidently the post about the strangeness of my life yesterday was premature, because a couple of hours later I accidentally carjacked someone.

We had found out that the other coder who had suggested the umbrella trick and I were coincidentally going to the airport at the same time, so he was going to come past the office and give me a lift - soon after getting outside, someone on the opposite side of the road stopped at the lights, and I could see through the tinted car window that he had the requisite long hair and glasses, and he did a double-take at me as if recognizing me. So I ducked through the rain, sprinted over the crossing and opened the door on the passenger side, making a joke about feeling that I was hijacking the car.

"But you are!" came a rather shocked reply, and I looked up to see that it wasn't him after all. So I gave a frantic, hysterical apology as I stepped away from the vehicle, and returned to my waiting place, watching him laugh shakenly as he finally got to turn the corner in peace away from his encounter with a dangerous lunatic. Please tell me this has happened to some other people as well.

It was a very strange day. I was exhausted even without my parents arriving, but they're here safely now, and had a rather more relaxing journey than I did on the ground. Why can't I have plane journeys like that?

Comments

[tamakun.livejournal.com]

The only situation I can relate is that I've twice gotten into the wrong car. Looked exactly the same as the one I was aiming for, the key unlocked the door (this was before automatic door-openers, gotta love those), sat down and immediately realized that I was not sitting in the right car.

It was like the same colours of the same model cars also had the same keylocks.

[davidn]

That's... a fairly major security issue! I've heard of people who called out the AA to "fix" their car door locks after getting locked out, and then suddenly realizing that it wasn't their car, but not people who had successfully got in to other people's cars with their own key. I wonder how common this was across different manufacturers...

[tamakun.livejournal.com]

This was quite a long time ago, mind you. This was before I had my own car, so it must've been at least 8 years ago at the latest (earliest?).

Now that most people have the automatic door thingy, I think it's much less likely, since the car also points out which one unlocked.

I should probably also note that if I use the automatic door lock to lock my car, I can't use my physical key to unlock the door without it tripping the alarm. It's strange, but I can understand that security "feature".