by noelwelsh
4 subcomments
- One person digging for copper took the whole of Armenia offline:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/apr/06/georgian-woman...
This is how you turn dollars into pennies. It suggests society is a bit broken if this seems a worthwhile thing to do.
- Something that isn't said or asked is what scrapyards are accepting these. For catalytic converters, most yards are supposed to measures in place to deter accepting stolen cats. Someone has to be seeing loads of things like statues or guardrails coming in by someone who almost certainly doesn't own them (and probably looks like it). There's financial incentive to accept anything and everything that comes in, but there needs to be more aggressive measures to punish yards that are unscrupulous and end up accepting stolen goods without a fight.
- This year there were multiple reports of people stealing bronze sculptures from graves here in the Netherlands. Thinks butterflies, birds, and other personal memorabilia. That's a fairly new development (and a new low). Small sculptures in public parks already were the occasional target.
Railroad wiring is a common target too of course.
Guardrails seem to be immune here though.
- In my trips to Bulgaria in the early 2000's I saw rampant metal theft. It got so bad that sidewalks had open 8 foot holes to utility spaces because someone tool the access doors. The problem has improved a lot over the years.
Also: I try to always separate any metals from our household trash stream that would not be accepted by the municipal recycling program. I store it up in a box and put it on the curb when it's full.(usually just aluminum, iron, and steel.) It disappears within 12 hours every time. I wish more people would do the same.
- In my little corner of heaven we get meth heads tying grappling chains to their trucks in order to yank down live power lines to sell for the copper.
I have no idea how none of them have died yet, as frequently as this seems to occur.
by tragiclos
5 subcomments
- Doesn't sound very profitable:
>Over the last two years, the state transportation agency has spent more than $62,000 on repairs related to guardrail theft in the region.
If the full cost of replacement is ~$31k/yr, the scrap value of the stolen guardrails is surely far less. Seems like there wouldn't be enough for even a single thief to make a living.
by kjkjadksj
7 subcomments
- So much theft going on for metals. Many streetlights get robbed for their copper wire. The new 6th street bridge in LA gets routinely stripped of wires. Most of the older bridges have been robbed of their old brass lamps already. Many brass plaques in parks or on infrastructure has been stolen.
What is interesting is that this has been ramping up just in the last couple of years. Some of the brass has been out in public for decades but is only now getting stolen hand over fist. I wonder what the impetus has been these days that wasn’t there in the past?
by mips_avatar
3 subcomments
- One problem with west africa is they desperately need better roads but whenever a foreign country/NGO comes in and builds a road the locals dig out the gravel and it collapses.
- Reminds me of when I used to work in Newark New Jersey. The cobblestone streets were pried up with crowbars and the cobblestones were sold. The old buildings had all of the plumbing ripped out so it could be sold. The new buildings had all of the wires ripped out so it could be sold.
- I think about this every single time I drive by a stretch of road that has these. You can't have public goods when the value of those goods in private hands is greater than the risk of, ahrm, converting those public goods into private goods.
When a society fails to provide sufficient opportunity for all its members then those who have been left behind can simply make up the difference by retrieving their share of the common wealth by other means.
The cost of trying to police this (ignoring entirely the moral and ethical implications of such policing) at the scale of e.g. all roads with guardrails is more than the value if replacing the rails, and likely substantially more than just providing the missing opportunity and removing the sources of wealth inequality that make wealth redistribution in the form of guard rails an inevitability.
by liendolucas
1 subcomments
- In Argentina is common to steal high voltage cable lines.
On one occasion a young man attemping to do so received a discharge that literally changed his skin color and pulverized his clothes. He was able to survive only a few hours as it turned out most of his organs suffered severe burns.
People wouldn't believe that after that he was still able to walk and talk normally until emergency services arrived.
by rogerthis
1 subcomments
- You are becoming Brazil (brazilian here).
by AnotherGoodName
1 subcomments
- Cast aluminum is 47cents per pound (~$1/kilo). https://sgt-scrap.com/todays-prices/
This is likely less than minimum wage for huge amounts of property damage.
by esbranson
1 subcomments
- And the solution is rather easy, if draconian: absolute liability, sky-high civil penalties, and enforcement by private individuals (a la "qui tam" or the Texas Heartbeat Act). Let the average person (read: lawyer) sue the scrap yards into oblivion, and make it lucrative enough that the thieves themselves will turn them in. Fight greed with greed, it works. For those people who think it's being sent across the border: secure the border.
by mannykannot
4 subcomments
- I'm surprised the guardrails are aluminum rather than galvanized steel.
by wewewedxfgdf
1 subcomments
- The symbolism of thieves stealing our guardrails!
- I remember reading that some policemen set up a recycling center, and basically 100% of the metal taken in was stolen in some way.
https://www.wired.com/2008/01/drugs-guns-remo/
""Of the 278 people who came in to the store, only two people had (items) from a legitimate source,"
- Where I grew up it was not that uncommon from time to time to experience no trains for weeks because of power lines theft. Insane the fact that people can just somehow cut such thick long cables without getting fried - just like that.
by randomNumber7
0 subcomment
- Why do they steal metal instead of sitting peacefully at home eating cake?
- I still remember a Reddit post, maybe a decade ago, about sewer manhole covers with fancy art in a Japanese town.
One of the top comments was: "This would get stolen in [American city] in 1 day."
- There was a somewhat viral photo of people stealing an entire Albuquerque street light.¹
¹ https://www.reddit.com/r/Albuquerque/comments/1fakprt/watche...
- > Nearly 470 sections of guardrailing were stolen in the last fiscal year alone in L.A. and Ventura counties, costing the state transportation agency $17,000 to replace, the agency said.
This implies that the total value to the thieves is pretty tiny.
Actually hang on...that must be an error. Do they mean $17,000 each? That seems too high, but $36 each seems way too low.
by helge9210
5 subcomments
- Don't try to catch thieves. Go for the scrapyards/recycling companies buying the metal.
- They're made from aluminium??!
by lawlessone
1 subcomments
- i've never thought of this before, that poverty makes other things more expensive.
- Make less of the wealth in society belong to the very very few and this wont happen as much.
- These guardrails are made of Aluminium. In my country guardrails are mostly made of steel or at least iron, which is mauch harder to cut and lower value.
- Prime third world country behavior.
(And yes, I’m from a third world country lol)
by GartzenDeHaes
0 subcomment
- Just like during the collapse of the Soviet Union.
by nilespotter
1 subcomments
- > Congress has cut federal funding for public media — a $3.4 million loss for LAist
Why the fuck was "LAist" getting federal funding? Glad they're not anymore.
- People who steal safety equipment should be summarily executed.
by ikekkdcjkfke
0 subcomment
- Thats QE for you
by tossandthrow
1 subcomments
- Ah yes, the great benefits of rampant inequality
by egypturnash
5 subcomments
- [flagged]
- Journalists are willing this to happen more by reporting on it.
Hacker News