Life goes on

Every now and then I hear stories about what's going on back in NZ, and occasionally they involve things even stranger that what's going on around me in Japan. I recently heard one such story from my mum.

Last week she had a car pull out in front of her in Wainuiomata, she couldn't stop in time, hit it, totalled her car, and needed to be taken off to hospital in the back of an ambulance. Good news is she is OK, no lasting damage, bloody lucky (well as lucky as someone who has been in a car accident can be).

Strange thing is, when my dad when to recover the car that night, it was gone. Someone had stolen a car that had been left smashed up on the side of the road following a car crash. It wasn't even a particularly nice car, worth only about $2000, that was naturally before the accident!

Rang the police, the next day, only to be informed the car had been spotted in Porirua or somewhere driving away following some crime. That explains where the number plates had gone, but why take the rest of the car as well?

Oh well, thats Wainuiomata for you. Currently however I live in a city of 400,000ish people an on average less than 10 car thefts a year. But the really strange thing is that here, people are scared of the high crime rate.