People of Ashland, Please Lock Your Doors

In the Tidings police briefs, there's always at least one person reporting an unauthorized entry into an unlocked car. At worst, these owners are out the change in their ashtray, but more often they just have an inconvenient mess.

While I certainly wouldn't consider these crimes to be the biggest issue in Ashland, preventing them is so simple. I love that Ashland is a safe enough community that I don't have to worry about my car when I park it. It's one of the primary reasons why I choose to call Ashland home, and like many of the people who leave their cars unlocked, I wouldn't want to see the pendulum swing towards hypersensitive car alarms that activate when a pedestrian sneezes. But somewhere between these two extremes lies common sense. There's a line between trusting others and inviting trouble, and an unlocked car door seems to be an effective invitation.

Ashland has many problems without simple solutions, but maybe if we addressed the easy ones, the others wouldn't seem so complex...or maybe it would just save the APD some paperwork. Either way, turning that key clockwise couldn't hurt.