[asdff]

They get away from time to time from the airship. Two in one week this past august and I don't think they ever caught the suspects. One drove under an overpass and fled on foot, the other entered LAX airspace which requires waiting on clearance from ATC and got away somehow after that. I don't know why they don't just shoot a magnetic dart at the car with a gps tracker on it.

[Aurornis]

> I don't know why they don't just shoot a magnetic dart at the car with a gps tracker on it.

Hitting a car going 100mph with a magnetic dart that and getting it to hit on a metal part, not a window or trim, and specially a steel panel, is not easy at all.

[mapt]

There's a lot more aluminum than steel on car exteriors these days.

[hollerith]

This got me curious so I went out on the street and held a magnet to the front passenger door of the first 6 parked cars I came across. The magnet stuck to 4 of them. The ones it did not stick to are a Nissan Rogue and a Jeep Sahara 4xe.

[brian-armstrong]

Decided to scratch up some peoples' clear coats for a little science experiment?

[hollerith]

Could I have damaged the cars even though I saw no signs of damage?

It would be nice if someone else with knowledge would chime in here. If this damages cars, then I want to know, so I can stop doing it in the future.

[Aurornis]

Unfortunately, yes. Dropping a magnet onto a car and pulling it off, especially if not recently cleaned, will damage the paint to some degree. Maybe not enough for an average person to notice, but you really shouldn’t do this to other people’s cars.

Some people will get snide about anyone who cares about their car’s paint, but as someone who once bought a car I had to save a long time for and spent a lot of time with car care products I would be very sad if I saw you drop a magnet on to it and then pull it off without a second thought. Please don’t.

[tom_]

It won't really matter all that much, but it will have done more than 0 damage to the paintwork (since metal is hard and paint is soft). Worth noting that drivers are touchy and emotional, and can't be trusted not to murder you over perceived slights, so it's safest to stick to doing nothing. Stuff something under the windscreen wipers if you really must, and even that is risky.

[nandomrumber]

A flexible fridge magnet is probably fine.

Seems like everyone here is assuming you used a 40lb neodymium magnet you dropped in the dirt first.

I like to assume the best in people.

[bradlys]

Unless the cars are perfectly washed and clayed, even running a clean finger over a car is likely to introduce scratches. I just wouldn’t ever touch someone’s car.

You can look up people even trying to detail their cars to make them cleaner and end up leaving “love marks.” It doesn’t matter how soft the thing you’re using is. It’s because the car has contaminants on it and by rubbing anything on the car, those contaminants end up scratching everything. It’s like when you’re at the beach and you’re trying to remove sand off your skin. You’re probably not aggressively rubbing it off or using much pressure but it still hurts. It’s the same with cars, it’s just that the rocks aren’t as visible to you. They will leave swirls and scratches though… which become noticeable.

I’ve had people just lean against my car when it wasn’t completely clean and completely ruin the paint requiring an entire 5 stage detail.

[brian-armstrong]

As long as the car is dirty, then contact with it can damage the top coat. This is a lot more true if you need to drag or scrape the magnet to remove it.

[bahmboo]

There is a thing called the grappler now. Seems like a reasonable tool: https://policebumper.com/

[asdff]

OK, one with a big glob of bubblegum on it then.

[dylan604]

What happens when they miss and hit you in the head instead?

[deadbolt]

Probably the same thing when the police shoot an innocent bystander currently - absolutely nothing.

[BoorishBears]

The actual darts for this don't look that far off tbh: https://www.toledoblade.com/local/police-fire/2016/04/06/GPS...

[BoorishBears]

They already have darts for this that use adhesives to stick to any part of the vehicle and shoot out from the pursuing vehicles

[efnx]

It would have to be a very special dart. Cars are mostly aluminum and foam. A piercing dart would be dangerous and a magnet would really work.

[Esophagus4]

These exist!

https://www.thedrive.com/news/police-tag-fleeing-cars-with-g...

https://www.starchase.com/products/vehicle-mounted-gps-launc...

[asdff]

Outside certain high performance cars, most cars have steel body panels.

[bluedino]

Some steel body panels. Much of a car is made of plastic/urethan type materials, hoods are usually aluminum, some bodies are all aluminum....

[WarOnPrivacy]

> Outside certain high performance cars, most cars have steel body panels.

I never thought of my Olds Silhouette minivan as a high performance car. Neat.

The rubbery panels were great. I was at school pickup and another parent backed into it. They crushed the front fender to the firewall. Then they pulled up and it popped out.

They were freaked out but it was fine. And it's just a car.

[Aurornis]

It’s more common than that. A lot of cars have aluminum panels now.

[Balgair]

Now this assumes that the LAPD/LASD/whomever actually cares to catch the suspect! In my (limited) experience with them, you could incinerate a full bus and they'd not blink an eye, but if you block the intersection at one of the many rush hours, that's a capital offense!