This is how you turn dollars into pennies. It suggests society is a bit broken if this seems a worthwhile thing to do.
Freak_NL · 10m ago
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.
liendolucas · 15m ago
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 surffered severe burns.
People wouldn't believe that after that he was still able to walk and talk normally until emergency services arrived.
daoboy · 2h ago
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.
techjamie · 1h ago
They do that here with the ISP wires and it takes out internet and cell service all over the county and beyond for usually two days straight each time. All the providers here run off the same infrastructure, so the only people with internet are those with satellite internet when it happens. I started driving in a direction to see how long it would take me cell service during it once and I had to drive about 40 miles.
At its peak it was happening every single month, but slowed after it started catching press.
stavros · 1h ago
How do you know they haven't?
daoboy · 1h ago
Fair enough. I supposed it would be in the local headlines, but I frequently tune out from the news for long stretches of time.
badpun · 1h ago
Alcoholics in Poland steal live train and tram traction. Once in a while, they die.
chasd00 · 1h ago
wait until it becomes widely known how much copper is in one of those EV super chargers. Although witnessing a bug zapper effect may deter some thieves.
cyberax · 1m ago
It's already widely known. Here in Seattle all the outdoor HVDC chargers are now down, with the cables cut.
Kirby64 · 1h ago
The unfortunate thing (for deterring theft at least) is that the actual DC cabling is going to be unenergized for safety reasons unless you’re actually charging. Copper theft on those charger plugs is already happening.
jerlam · 27m ago
I'm told that many (if not most) chargers in Europe are Bring Your Own Cable. I don't know if that's for compatibility or for theft reasons, but it makes sense.
Kirby64 · 15m ago
I’m not aware of any DC fast chargers that do that, even in Europe. It wouldn’t make sense, since the amount of power you have to push through a DCFC setup is so immense that the cabling is quite unwieldy and specialized. Often the cables are liquid cooled.
hunter2_ · 11m ago
Indeed, they're talking about L2 AC public chargers in Europe being BYOC. And going back to the idea that cables are de-energized when not charging, this is true for L2 AC also (the EVSE will have a contactor that the car effectively controls).
Kirby64 · 1m ago
Yup, basically the only chance for you to get zapped by a charger is either ripping the whole thing out so you make contact with the input AC, or cutting the wire while it’s actively charging a car. And even then, chargers have ground fault protection for L2, and L3 chargers have high voltage isolation monitoring. They’re remarkably safe even against blatant tampering.
krunck · 2h ago
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.
mmmlinux · 26m ago
Hopefully they aren't just picking out the good bits and dumping the remainder of the box somewhere else.
Freak_NL · 20m ago
Nah. Any sorting won't be done until they've finished their rounds. People who gather metal from street side dumps just cart it all to the nearest scrap metal dealer. Most is aluminium and steel anyway; both recycle just fine.
cut3 · 42m ago
We have alleys where I am in the US and I sort out all the things thst could be useful and leave them in the alley and they all get picked up by folks before the day is over
tragiclos · 2h ago
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.
petsfed · 1h ago
Cost to repair correctly is almost always a lot higher than the fence value of the material, but more importantly, repair cost is always higher than the labor/tool cost to steal the material. Dunno how long it takes to cut off a 12 foot section of guard rail, but the fence value of that rail only has to be more than $15/hr over the time it takes to find and remove the rail to make it profitable.
Its the same thing with catalytic converters. The crackhead stealing a catalytic converter from a 2011 prius is interested in the $150-$350 of platinum in the catalytic converter, not the $2200+labor replacement cost of the thing. Considering that its ~20 minutes looking, and ~2 minutes sawing to steal the thing, we should all be so lucky as to make $150-$350 for less than 30 minutes' work.
ndileas · 1h ago
People willing and able to do this probably have a few things going on at a time. Plus they're not necessarily at the high end of living expenses. A couple grand haul for a couple hours work is pretty good.
D-Coder · 1h ago
Well, they're freelancers, so they probably have another half-dozen things going on.
kjkjadksj · 1h ago
Your cost of living is pretty low if you live in a nylon tent
mk89 · 28m ago
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.
hunter2_ · 18m ago
Same idea as birds not getting fried on uninsulated overhead lines, I reckon. Depending on voltage, shoes on the earth wouldn't be nearly as good as a huge air gap, but maybe a tall fiberglass ladder is decent.
IshKebab · 30m ago
They're made from aluminium??!
mmmlinux · 28m ago
And some how he still struggled to cut through it apparently. Must have been the cheapest used recip saw blade he could buy.
cpursley · 2m ago
Buy? Lol he most certainly didn’t purchase it.
msarrel · 1h ago
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.
mannykannot · 1h ago
I'm surprised the guardrails are aluminum rather than galvanized steel.
No comments yet
fooker · 1h ago
Prime third world country behavior.
(And yes, I’m from a third world country lol)
sharpy · 1h ago
Once upon a time, a colleague from South Africa told me that they use fiber cable everywhere. I was surprised by this that they seem to be more advanced than us. Turns out that copper wire gets stolen, so they have no choice...
bregma · 1h ago
Plenty of stories about yahoos hitching their pickup to a telephone repeater box around where I live to pull the copper cable only to find it's fibre. You can't beat stupid.
vorpalhex · 1h ago
There's an old network admin adage that if you ever need a backhoe to show up, all you need to do is bury some fiber optic cable.
Soon enough a backhoe will magically appear to sever your buried fiber.
This trick works great if you ever get lost. They say a master network admin always carries 6ft of fiber optic just for this reason.
itronitron · 1h ago
In my experience, you can easily find any buried telecom cable as long as you dig several feet away from the marked utility lines.
No comments yet
esseph · 1h ago
"Backhoe fade"
acct-detrius-09 · 1h ago
My wife said in South Africa, growing up in the 1980s, everything metal was harvested like old growth forest. I guess people are as destitute everywhere now.
ajsnigrutin · 23m ago
In the third world, people gang up against criminals and police comes and beats them too. After a few manhole covers were stolen by the typical group, half the village went to their "neighborhood" until they got the covers back.
egypturnash · 12m ago
why the fuck do we tolerate a society where people get so fucking desperate to live that they are stealing freeway guardrails, holy shit
kjkjadksj · 3h ago
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?
staplung · 2h ago
Presumably multi-causal (economic desperation, rising metal costs, perception that the crime won't be punished, getting the idea from others, etc.) but at least one component is probably the rise of high-powered, battery-operated tools. Battery tools are so much better today than they were even 10 years ago. In the picture from the article you can see the guy using a battery-powered reciprocating saw. Not long ago, an approach like that wouldn't have been feasible.
toomuchtodo · 2h ago
To your point, you can get a Stihl Cutquik TSA 230 Cordless Cut-Off Saw for ~$500-600, and this will make quick work of anything getting in the way of scraping. I've cut through thick steel with it like its butter (and the only portable way to go faster is something like a plasma torch, depending on material and thickness).
While that is a great saw. Metal thieves are likely using harbor freight angle grinders and sawzalls costing well under $200.
prasadjoglekar · 1h ago
They're probably using stolen goods to begin with. This is in CA. IIRC, there was no penalty for thefts of <$1000 until recently.
kjkjadksj · 1h ago
Maybe that needs a sawzall. But getting into a utility box only took hand tools. Only recently after thefts have gotten so bad have they been welding these boxes shut. When they stole all the historic lights off the Hyperion Bridge in LA, it looks like they were merely unbolted:
Im wondering of regulatory enforcement on the metals dealers has gone down. The last time Southern California had problems like this they added required identification and thumbprints for any seller at the dealers. Presumably there have been workarounds since that allow stolen metals to be moved
murderfs · 2h ago
> I wonder what the impetus has been these days that wasn’t there in the past?
Fentanyl and cheap battery powered tools
kjkjadksj · 1h ago
Not a lot of fentanyl use in CA, it's mostly meth use. Dremels and Sawzalls are nothing new.
No comments yet
FireBeyond · 16m ago
In my area, we've taken to replacing brass hydrant fixtures with hardened resin covers and such, because they were constantly being stolen.
And as much as that is an issue in itself, gotta love the scrap metal dealers who see someone show up with a shopping trolley full of brass hydrant covers and "sure, no problem here".
christhecaribou · 2h ago
Is brass more expensive than it used to be?
sparrish · 2h ago
Yes. Copper (major component of brass) is seeing all-time highs at around $4.60 lb.
DougN7 · 1h ago
I had assumed it was much higher. How many pounds of copper could be in the wiring of a street lamp? 5 pounds?
chasd00 · 1h ago
Enough to get high, in Dallas the drug houses take copper and other metal as payment. No need to make the trip to the junk yard.
unethical_ban · 1h ago
Social media hyping it? Stupid kids get an idea? I'm speculating.
helge9210 · 1h ago
Don't try to catch thieves. Go for the scrapyards/recycling companies buying the metal.
dmurray · 12m ago
The numbers just don't seem big enough. Repair costs of $62,000 over two years in LA and Ventura counties - an area with 10 million people. The savings from 100% enforcement at the scrapyard level would pay for what, one full time employee inspector for the state of California?
It would be cheaper all round to add a $100 yearly registration fee to every scrapyard, rather than give them an extra compliance burden.
Symbiote · 1h ago
That's how it works in the UK, following too many thefts of copper cables for railways which are at least one, maybe two orders of magnitude more expensive to repair than highway barriers.
You must show identification when selling scrap metal, and the scrapyard must record that for a period.
convolvatron · 1h ago
I work with a lot of scrap and scrappers. they did this at the local scrapyard, and indeed they stopped accepting anything from anyone without a city-issued business license.
now the tweakers sell directly to scrappers with a business license, that take a 25-50% cut.
AmVess · 1h ago
That's all there is to it. All these scum know they are buying stolen items, but they do it anyway. Same thing for catalytic converters and copper stolen from just about anywhere.
Drop long prison sentences and massive fines on these people, and this problem would vanish in short order.
bregma · 55m ago
As I understand it after having been informed by authoritative sources over a significant period of time, they should just say "no".
brookst · 1h ago
Criminal charges generally require proving intent. It's very hard to prove what somebody knew.
What you can do is make it illegal to buy particular materials, and then the intent to break that law becomes obvious.
squigz · 1h ago
You honestly believe a scrapyard owner should go to jail for buying metal that might be stolen?
Fines, sure. But "long prison sentences"?
> this problem would vanish in short order.
Anyway that's worked well for drug abuse/sales, so it should probably work here too
unethical_ban · 1h ago
Once pharmacies and drug manufacturers in the American legal system started getting held liable for excessive opioid prescriptions and pushing, it became less common. So yeah. It might work.
Same with pawn shops.
squigz · 1h ago
> Same with pawn shops.
Isn't America experiencing absurd amounts of petty theft right now? Maybe pawn shops are no longer in the equation (doubtful, though. Any data on this?) but did it actually help alleviate the problem?
As for the opioid crisis... well, I don't want to open up that can of worms.
tossandthrow · 1h ago
Ah yes, the great benefits of rampant inequality
MiiMe19 · 21m ago
Ah yes, inequality, the thing that makes you remove safety barriers from bridges and roads.
noelwelsh · 8m ago
The value provided by the infrastructure greatly exceeds the value of selling it as scrap. If it seems worthwhile to an individual to, effectively, turn dollars into pennies a reasonable explanation is that none of those dollars come to them.
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.
Railroad wiring is a common target too of course.
Guardrails seem to be immune here though.
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 surffered severe burns.
People wouldn't believe that after that he was still able to walk and talk normally until emergency services arrived.
I have no idea how none of them have died yet, as frequently as this seems to occur.
At its peak it was happening every single month, but slowed after it started catching press.
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.
>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.
Its the same thing with catalytic converters. The crackhead stealing a catalytic converter from a 2011 prius is interested in the $150-$350 of platinum in the catalytic converter, not the $2200+labor replacement cost of the thing. Considering that its ~20 minutes looking, and ~2 minutes sawing to steal the thing, we should all be so lucky as to make $150-$350 for less than 30 minutes' work.
No comments yet
(And yes, I’m from a third world country lol)
Soon enough a backhoe will magically appear to sever your buried fiber.
This trick works great if you ever get lost. They say a master network admin always carries 6ft of fiber optic just for this reason.
No comments yet
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?
https://www.stihlusa.com/products/cut-off-machines/battery-c...
(no affiliation, I just like the tool)
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-01-05/historic...
Fentanyl and cheap battery powered tools
No comments yet
And as much as that is an issue in itself, gotta love the scrap metal dealers who see someone show up with a shopping trolley full of brass hydrant covers and "sure, no problem here".
It would be cheaper all round to add a $100 yearly registration fee to every scrapyard, rather than give them an extra compliance burden.
You must show identification when selling scrap metal, and the scrapyard must record that for a period.
now the tweakers sell directly to scrappers with a business license, that take a 25-50% cut.
Drop long prison sentences and massive fines on these people, and this problem would vanish in short order.
What you can do is make it illegal to buy particular materials, and then the intent to break that law becomes obvious.
Fines, sure. But "long prison sentences"?
> this problem would vanish in short order.
Anyway that's worked well for drug abuse/sales, so it should probably work here too
Same with pawn shops.
Isn't America experiencing absurd amounts of petty theft right now? Maybe pawn shops are no longer in the equation (doubtful, though. Any data on this?) but did it actually help alleviate the problem?
As for the opioid crisis... well, I don't want to open up that can of worms.