The Mystery of the Cars Abandoned in a Robot Car Park (bbc.com) 147
The mystery of why a handful of cars were abandoned in a derelict car park in Edinburgh, Capital of Scotland, may have been solved. From a report on BBC: The $7m Autosafe SkyPark used robots to stack cars and was dubbed the "car park of the future" -- but went into receivership in 2003. After lying empty for more than a decade, the building in Morrison Street is now being demolished. And the work has uncovered eight cars which were left behind when the doors were closed. Images of the abandoned vehicles has sparked a number of theories about why they were never removed. But a former employee has said they could be old vehicles which were bought by the car park's former operators to test out the robot equipment. A spokesperson said: "We can confirm that there are eight cars present at the car park on the Capital Square site, which have been there since the car park closed in 2003. The owners of the cars are unknown and they are now the property of the demolition company who will remove the cars once work begins on the levels on which they are located."
Exaplains the bankruptcy (Score:1)
If they left 8 test vehicles in the system, that was 8 spots they were not using for revenue. Speaks to the financial brains of the company running the car park being not so bright.
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I'm guessing that had they needed any of those 8 spaces, they would quickly have removed the test cars.
It seems likely that this business failed because not enough people parked their cars there at a profitable price point, not that they lacked sufficient capacity because 8 spaces where unavailable...
Re: Exaplains the bankruptcy (Score:1)
If u have 8 test cars and own a carpark where else would u keepem?
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I drove past the demolition site today. The car park was located behind the EICC, a conference centre which is how I expect it was supposed to get much of its business but most conference attendees would arrive by train (one station about 500 metres from the convention centre, the other station a bit over a kilometre away) or by bus or taxi from the airport rather than driving into the city centre. It wasn't ideally situated for shopping or business commuting either.
I didn't even know it was there to be tru
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It failed because it was expensive to operate and maintain.
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You use that word, but I don't think it means what you think it means.
If they really want to find the owners they would dredge the base of the River Forth. We all know that this is a case of the Scottish Mafia at work.
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Why are the owners of the cars unknown? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Why are the owners of the cars unknown? (Score:5, Insightful)
Bah, where's your sense of mystery and intrigue? The news media have a popular mandate to entertain us now, not merely to inform us.
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Cars in the UK don't have titles.
But cars must be registered (with the DVLA).
The difference is that there is no document that proves ownership of a car in the UK.
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So ... then ... if I steal a car in the UK it's mine because the owner can't prove otherwise?
I'm sure I'm missing something, but that sounds really fucking broken.
How the fuck do you establish ownership?
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So ... then ... if I steal a car in the UK it's mine because the owner can't prove otherwise?
I'm sure I'm missing something, but that sounds really fucking broken.
How the fuck do you establish ownership?
If someone steals your bag of bagels, how do you establish ownership?
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So ... then ... if I steal a car in the UK it's mine because the owner can't prove otherwise?
I'm sure I'm missing something, but that sounds really fucking broken.
How the fuck do you establish ownership?
If someone steals your bag of bagels, how do you establish ownership?
I don't bother because a bag of bagels doesn't cost half a year's wages... unlike a car.
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VIN numbers exist for a reason.
The same reason we have PIN numbers for our ATM machines. To drive pedants insane.
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Uh... no.
VIN's are (supposed to be) unique. Your PIN is (probably) not. Your PIN is supposed be kept private, while the VIN on your car is published. There is nothing distinctive about your PIN that differentiates you from anyone else, upon request, it merely offers verification of your identity. You must have, prior to this point, already made a claim to having a particular identity, so the PIN does not independently identify you. A VIN can be used entirely by itself to uniquely identify both a s
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Uh... no.
VIN's are (supposed to be) unique. Your PIN is (probably) not. ......
whoosh!!!!!
Whoosh (Score:2)
GP's only point was that it's a VIN, not a VIN number.
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Fair call.... I missed that completely.
No kidding about wooosh! My bad.
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If someone steals your bag of bagels, how do you establish ownership?
If someone makes an analogy that in no way applies to the situation at hand, how do you respond?
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If someone steals your bag of bagels, how do you establish ownership?
If someone makes an analogy that in no way applies to the situation at hand, how do you respond?
Ask for it in a car analogy. You must be new here.
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Kudos to you, sir. I actually laughed out loud.
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So ... then ... if I steal a car in the UK it's mine because the owner can't prove otherwise?
I'm sure I'm missing something, but that sounds really fucking broken.
How the fuck do you establish ownership?
If someone steals your bag of bagels, how do you establish ownership?
It seems unlikely there could such a huge range of possible disputes over ownership of bagels.
Just one possible example: aging parent originally bought the car, but adult child has been taking over more and more of driving it, and maintaining it. Do they own it now? If so, how much of it?
Sure, you can just adjudicate this stuff, but for big pieces of property, a system of title, liens, controlled transfers, and so forth seems to work well.
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Just one possible example: aging parent originally bought the car, but adult child has been taking over more and more of driving it, and maintaining it. Do they own it now?
No. The title of ownership is still in the parent's name. Until the parent dies or transfers the title to the child the child has no percentage of ownership of the vehicle.
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The vehicle registration document tracks the registered keeper of the car, who is the person legally responsible for the vehicle, so the owner is not really that relevant. The registered keeper is legally responsible for any incidents or offences involving the car and so on and so forth. The only time ownership becomes relevant is when selling the vehicle, in which case you generally need to produce proof of purchase of the car, although I have sold a car with just a vehicle registration document (it was a
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Yes, the ownership of all cars is recorded by the DVLA (Driver & Vehicle Licensing Agency). This information determines, e.g., who the ticket gets sent to, when the car gets flashed by a speed camera.
I presume there's some reason why this record doesn't make this exercise trivial. Maybe the records expire, if the vehicle isn't licensed or tax paid on it for a long time. (Although that hardly seems likely - badgering the owner for tax is also part of the database's purpose.) Or maybe the cars were offici
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Of course they could prove otherwise. The registration has their name on it. The owners have the receipts for the purchase of the car in a box in the shed. It's insured in their name. It's been in their driveway for the past few years.
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So...The registration is legal proof of ownership? How do you handle leans when you borrow money to buy a car? So IF I head down to the government office that handles registrations, I can register YOUR car, buy insurance for it and after a couple of years just call it mine?
In the USA the registration just proves you own the license plate and tells authorities what car it's attached to. It doesn't establish ownership of the car. Anybody can buy insurance on any car they like, just give them the VIN and
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The title will state that the owner is the finance company, with you as the debtor in possession of the car. When you finish paying off the loan, the title will be re-issued in your name. I remember when I finished paying for my car and the bank sent me the title. The registration for the license plate will be in your name since it cares about who is in possession of the car, not who owns it.
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We are talking about the UK, where there are no titles for cars.
A car loan is an unsecured loan in the UK.
This page has some useful information on the topic:
https://www.osv.ltd.uk/registe... [osv.ltd.uk]
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In practice though, the registered keeper is typically the owner. If you contest ownership of a car, you'd need some pretty strong evidence.
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Ok. So that means the issue here is terminology.. A V5 "log book" is what we call a "Title" in the US. You call this a registration.
In the USA the registration establishes the link between the vehicle and the license plate issued by the state you live in. You would call that an "entitlement" that tells the government which car has your plate.
So, if you lose your "log book" you call the government to get another one, but you have to prove YOU are the current owner to do so. We have a similar process fo
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This falls down as you don't need to keep a vehicle registered if the vehicle is not on the roads.
I have many many motorcycles that are not registered and not on the road. When I purchased them many of them were for a cash transaction in a park where the the seller and I wrote a receipt on a bit of paper.
If I decide I ever want to ride those motorcycles on the road I have to register the vehicle, at which point I have to prove ownership. That ownership proof being the receipt.
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No. in the US, the lienholder is formally recorded on the title until the debt is paid, then a new title is issued, by the state, after sign off from all parties, removing them and leaving just the owner on it.
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Yes, that's what I was trying to say: "But the person who's name is on the title owns the vehicle (with consideration for any leans which may be recorded on the title.)"
The lean on the title says that the named entity has a lean on the asset and the owner isn't free to transfer title to another w/o consent from the lean holder. So I own the car, but I have to get the lean holder's permission (usually by paying off the loan) to transfer the title to somebody else.
I was trying to ask how they deal with t
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So these things establish ownership in your country? There are no Title records? Remind me not to own a car over there...
A car is like any other thing you own. Your proof of ownership shows that it is yours. There is no special government run ownership tracking system for anything other than land.
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So in the UK, In the case of disputes, how is it decided? Say the bank says you didn't pay off the loan or your neighbor says the car is theirs and your house burned down so you don't have a bill of sale or anything else to defend yourself. They have the keys to your car because they found them in the soldering ruins of your house after the fire got put out... There are no license plates on it, or insurance because it was an off road vehicle and there hasn't been for a decade.
What are you going to do t
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I am in Australia but there system here will be much the same. Titles refer to land only here because land comes from the Government originally anyway so its the Government's way of keeping track of who owns what.
I once had a loan on a car I bought but there was no government involvement in that process. I had to sign a binding agreement and the company who have me the loan could have taken the car back if I had defaulted. They would have to go to court for that I suppose.
As for how to identify stolen prope
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In the UK, you can't put a lien on a car's title, because cars don't have titles. If you borrow money to buy a car in the UK, it's actually an unsecured loan. Or, at least, that's how it used to work when I lived there.
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So.. You can just buy a car using a bank loan and then sell the car for cash and the bank has no way to enforce their interest in the car other than to sue you to collect? Dang, that's a scam just waiting to happen you know. I'll be the banks hate this and have to charge serious interest to make up for their losses..
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The last time* I used a bank loan in the UK to buy a car, the bank just put the money into my account and I wrote out a check to the seller.
If you want to take the loan for a car and blow it on whatever, there is no need to buy, then sell a car.
* several decades ago.
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Now, I am going to blow your mind. In the past, in the UK, there was no land registry. No registration of who owned a particular piece of land. After the land registry came into force, there was no need to register existing ownership of land. Land only becomes registered on change of ownership. Actually, I am not even sure about change of owners
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If you squat in a property that is not registered for long enough, not paying rent, etc., then the property becomes yours. This does occasionally happen.
This happens here too. We inherited "common law" from you guys. We call it "Adverse Possession" and it involves occupying a property long enough to establish that the owner isn't interested in or capable of maintaining ownership. This is very rare here too as the process is time consuming and involves court actions...
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Go here https://www.gov.uk/sold-bought... [www.gov.uk] and you really don't want to not tell the DVLA, or all the new owners fines will come to you, Getting a signed bill of sale is a good idea too.
Conversely, when buying a car privately, get the ‘new keeper’s details’ slip (V5C/2) from the seller and tell the DVLA at the same web site.
The buyer will need to pay tax also.
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Cars in the UK don't have titles.
Nonsense . . . my Morris Minor has an OBE.
The guy who sold it to me told me it inherited the title from its father, the "Yo" man Beef Wellington Triumph TR4.
If you look in the trunks, you'll find Jimmy Hoffa in one.
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If you look in the trunks, you'll find Jimmy Hoffa in one.
Aha! Caught you! Everyone knows it's called the "boot" over there!
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The difference is that there is no document that proves ownership of a car in the UK.
While technically true, the car must have a registered keeper. Not necessarily the owner, e.g. it's common for kids to be the registered keeper of a car owned by their parents. That person is then responsible for either keeping the vehicle taxed or declaring it "SORN" which basically means "it's kept on private property and can't be used on the public roads".
So these trapped cars must presumably have been declared as SORN, or the registered keeper would have had to keep paying road tax on them.
At this point
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The best kind of true!
And I did point out that cars must be registered.
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A little more info here:
https://www.askthe.police.uk/c... [police.uk]
https://www.gov.uk/request-inf... [www.gov.uk]
Note: "registered keeper", not owner.
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Do they not have title records for cars in the UK? It seems like it'd be a trivial exercise to look up the license plate or the VIN to determine the owner of those cars.
Yes and no. It depends how old they are. The car park went into receivership in 2003 so the cars may be years older than that, maybe even predating the computerisation of the DVLA.
That's besides the point. The registration record is just the last person who paid tax on the car. The simple and effective defence to that is to say "I sold the car" and with no evidence to the contrary the Judge will be forced to accept that at face value, the DVLA know this so they wouldn't even bother, doubly so if the las
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"next to impossible" means it's possible.
It may not be worth the records search, but the state HAS the records and can find them if necessary.
I purchased a vehicle for $65 that had been sitting in a field for 15 years once. Missouri didn't have a problem finding the title and transferring it to me and I know the vehicle hadn't been registered while it sat there (the inspection sticker and registration stickers where both15 years old.) We gave them the VIN and they found the title and given the seller
/. is going downhill. (Score:3)
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no there is software problem, the AI system didn't point out it had long abandoned cars.
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Um, it is a robot car park that uses AI to stack cars. How is it not relevant to tech???
Because the technology is not being discussed. I would be very interested in the tech, and even more interested in why it failed. But who owned 8 abandoned car? Who cares?
I have seen automatic parking in Japan, and it seems to work well there. Maybe the difference is in the demand for parking. Japan has very little "street parking", since they believe streets are for driving, not parking. Before you can buy a car in Japan, you have to provide proof that you own or are leasing a parking space. Also, Ed
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It is 2018. Any program is AI.
And we wonder why we have a fake news problem perpetuated by the ignorant masses.
They don't know? (Score:1)
VIN numbers?
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VIN numbers?
The owners didn't to go to the ATM machine to get money to pay for the cars being parked. Perhaps because they forgot their PIN numbers.
FWIW, those ATM machines communicate with NIC cards. And they likely have LCD displays.
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The BBC already has a story that the mystery is solved, out today. I guess this is a typical Slashdot error of being too slow to show up in the feed.
Solution was, these were test cars used when the facility was being built. Junkers.
"car park" (Score:2)
FYI, it's the British for a parking lot or (like in this case) a parking garage. https://www.merriam-webster.co... [merriam-webster.com]
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I take my dog to the dog lot.
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For the longest time, I didn't know what a parkway was, and I'm American. So the old joke of park in a driveway, drive in a parkway fell flat for me.
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Many British drivers park in a drive when they're at home.
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I can't believe so many posts wondering about this phrase. Are my fellow Americans really that ignorant and stuck in a bubble? Read some British books, watch some British TV. This is slashdot, I'd hope we'd have a lot of Doctor Who fans at the very least. Can someone who is ignorant of British English really be a nerd?
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I can't believe there are so many responses of British people offended that someone didn't know their terminology. ;)
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Ding, ding, ding - geography lesson required!
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A mystery raised and solved all in the same summary!
Talk about efficient reporting...
Or just fake news.. Depends on how you look at it.
People leave cars all the time (Score:2)
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If the cars were purchased a long time ago (before the perpetual licensing) and kept on private property, they may never have registered and licensed them. this is a sensible thing to do in the circumstances. The car tax isn't free. That would explain why they couldn't find the owners. The owner had forgotten they owned them and hadn't done the paperwork.
Somewhere in Edinburgh, a drunk is waking up (Score:5, Funny)
And, after a 10-year bender, he's asking himself "Now, where did I park my car?"
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I don't understand what that has to do with this story?
It's funny because 10 years ago we didn't have Lyft and Uber.
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That sure looks like my Rabbit! Although I don't remember ever being in Edinburgh.
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Dude, Where's My Car? [facebook.com]
The Sopranos (Score:2)
Everything you need to know is in Adriana's farewell episode.
Marvin probably parked them (Score:2)
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Dear Slashdot (Score:5, Funny)
There are also abandoned cars in my neighborhood. Slashdot, please help me solve this non-tech mystery on a supposedly tech-related site.
Dude! (Score:2)
Where's my car?
Mystery solved (Score:1)
Mystery appears to have been solved by a commenter on the story at the Edinburgh Evening News - seemingly the vehicles in question were purchased by the company which built the car park to conduct tests of the new system.
https://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/our-region/edinburgh/has-the-mystery-of-the-cars-in-edinburgh-s-robot-car-park-been-solved-1-4670137
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It's a car park to us you septic cunt. Fuck off with meddling with our language, you have FAR bigger problems.
I dare you to wander around Londonistan waving an Israeli flag.
The likely outcome is that nothing would happen. Maybe your weak arm would get tired. Also onlookers would judge you as being insensitive.