Is it Safe Out There?

Many of those new to the RV lifestyle are concerned about safety. They read about crimes and wonder--how subject to the criminal element are folks in RVs? If you sit around the campfire, sooner or later there's some sort of RV "crime story" bound to come up--but if you push your source for specifics, it often seems things seem to get vague. Yes, we have heard of actual incidents where travelers have run into trouble--but in reality, it's a very RARE situation.

RVs are pretty hard to break into, compared to the common home. After all, in the dark of night, a big old house presents a lot of places to sneak in. Your little old RV is so small if somebody breaks a window, it's sure to wake you up. Burglars don't want to let you know they're coming.

Too, robberies most often involve planning: The neighborhood mini-mart. The bank. The liquor store. Somebody's home known to have valuables or lots of dough. By our transient nature, as RVers, we're a whole lot harder work into a well planned robbery effort. That, and for some reason, a prevailing view of RVers is that we all carry sawed off shotguns around, begging for chance to "make my day."

We'll leave the thought of toting a weapon up to you, but there are a few tips that can make your RV experience more secure. First, use common sense. Don't open your door to anyone (particularly at night) who you don't know. Don't park your rig in neighborhoods infested with "tagging" graffiti. Keep your doors locked. Leave the hitchhiker for somebody else to pick up. If you do stay overnight in a "rest area," use your own bathroom at night, rather than presenting yourself as an easy mark as you wander up to the public one.

We all have a "sixth sense" about danger. We've had experiences on the road where we just felt that, "Something isn't right here..." and we heeded it: We picked up and moved on. After years of roving about in our RV, we can honestly say that's only happened less than a handful to times, and we've never had any real trouble out there.

Basement Storage Security

As fulltimers, most of us have to lug all our stuff with us. That makes "basement storage," those handy outside compartments with lots of stuffing space, so attractive. But beware--that storage may not be as secure as you think.

For outside compartments with the standard "cabinet lock," your lock may not be as secure as you like. Visit any used RV sales lot and try your own compartment key on different RVs. You may be surprised just how many other rig compartments you can open. With so many RVs made, and so few suppliers to the industry, there's bound to be a lot more keys in common than we'd like to think.

Changing out the standard cabinet lock is easy, all it takes is a replacement lock, an adjustable wrench, and a few minutes time. We visited a locksmith and had him make up a number of compartment locks--all keyed alike--to replace our OEM locks. We feel a lot more secure knowing that not just "anybody" will easily open up our storage pods.