Cars

More than 39,000 people piled into the Philadelphia International Auto Show in its first two days Saturday and yesterday at its new home at the Pennsylvania Convention Center. Saul Kun, chairman of the auto show, sponsored by the Automobile Dealers Association of Greater Philadelphia, said yesterday's total of 19,902 paid admissions was 4,000 more than last year's first Sunday of the show. Kun and Robert Butera, executive director of the Convention Center, said parking and traffic problems did not materialize despite the crowded, Center City environs of the Convention Center.

Unless otherwise attributed, the following reports are based on the statements of local police. Caln Five cars were stolen; three of them were found. A 1992 Dodge Shadow stolen last Thursday or Friday from the Meadowlake Apartments was found in Valley Township. Two Plymouth Sundances were stolen Friday or Saturday from the Meadowlake Apartments; one of them was found Saturday on G.O. Carlson Boulevard. A 1990 Dodge Spirit, stolen Sunday or Monday from the first block of Brighton Court, was found in Reading.

A DAY AFTER a 21-year-old man was arrested for slashing tires in Northeast Philadelphia, vandals early Wednesday damaged more than a dozen cars with a caustic chemical in Crescentville. The latest spree was reported about 4:30 a.m. on Van Kirk Street near Bingham. Initial reports indicated that an acid-like caustic liquid was thrown on more than a dozen cars, damaging their paint. Vehicles in various Northeast neighborhoods have been vandalized since October, causing thousands of dollars in damage.

George Dunning of Oreland looks over a 1962 MG Model A at a show of British cars held Saturday at the Hope Lodge in Fort Washington. The cars were displayed by the Delaware Valley Triumph Club, the Philadelphia MG Club, the Philadelphia Austin Healey Club and the Delaware Valley Jaguar Club.

Motorists who call the West Goshen police for help when they lock their keys in their cars will find their requests low on the department's list of emergency priorities. Police Chief Michael Dunn told township supervisors Tuesday night that "an astounding number of calls received in the past year" had forced his department to review its policy of assisting motorists who need their cars unlocked. Dunn said the 18-member department received 974 calls since September 1986. Most of the calls were from township residents who had locked their keys in cars or trucks.

Detectives here are investigating the smashing of eight cars' windows in the Pennypacker, Buckingham and Millbrook Park neighborhoods Tuesday night. The first report of a broken window was at 9:50 p.m., when the driver's side window of a 1973 Ford truck parked on the 100 block of Melbourne Lane was smashed. Within the next hour, the windows of five more cars were reported smashed: a 1989 Mercury Tracer parked in the 100 block of Buckingham Way; a 1988 Ford Escort and an Oldsmobile Cutlass, both parked in the 200 block of Pheasant Lane; and a 1990 Buick Century and a 1984 Ford Tempo, both on the 100 block of Marshall Lane.

Police have issued another alert to borough residents after the second rash of overnight thefts from automobiles in less than a month. Overnight on Feb. 5 and 6, 41 vehicles were entered in the northwest sector of the borough. Ten more incidents were reported overnight Monday, this time in the northeast sector. All of the cars were unlocked, police said. One victim reported that $150 in two bills had been taken from the glove compartment. The owner of another car reported $80 missing.

It began as a simple neighborhood cleanup effort yesterday in West Kensington. But by day's end, some streets were strewn with overturned and abandoned cars, some of which had been set on fire. After city trash trucks drove by without picking up the garbage, police say, some angry residents took to the streets in a frenzy of protest. For several hours, they rode through the neighborhood, pushing abandoned cars into the middle of the streets, heaving them over onto their roofs and setting some of them on fire.

The two mayoral candidates sparred over the issue of abandoned cars yesterday as Republican Sam Katz came out with his plan for getting rid of the estimated 47,000 heaps dumped along Philadelphia streets. Posed in front of an abandoned car parked outside the John B. Stetson Middle School on Allegheny Avenue, Katz came out with a detailed plan that combines up to $500,000 in more state money with streamlined city procedures. "Burned out, rusted and vandalized vehicles are more than just eyesores," Katz said.

The headline over Sandra Thompson's Sept. 11 Letter to the Editor was reversed. It should have read, "Motorists create danger on River Dr. " Drivers have a lot of gall driving their cars through what is essentially a city park and demanding that bicycle riders be ruled off the roadways. The problem of course is that the recreational nature of Fairmount Park, like most other things in our society, has been subjugated to insatiable demands of an ever-growing army of motor vehicles. This motorization of the environment, a process that is virtually complete in the suburbs, has already ruined most American cities and is eating away at Philadelphia bit by bit. If Philadelphia does not find a way to grow and prosper without succumbing to this process, most of the things that make this city more livable than most American cities will eventually be lost.

Q. Some time ago, you had a letter regarding parking in the center lane of South Broad Street. The city lost revenue because there were no tickets. Well, I have a related problem with cars running the red lights at Bustleton Avenue and Hartel Street. This happens many times an hour. I live nearby and I have never seen a police car staking out that light. I often see police cars parked at the nearby Dunkin' Donuts just a stone's throw away with the cops just talking. A little more patrolling would net the city plenty of extra revenue from the tickets that would be issued.

DONTA CRADDOCK and Ivan Rodriguez were brought to tears Wednesday afternoon upon hearing that they had been found guilty of four counts of second-degree murder and would spend the rest of their lives in state prison. "Sorry, Mom, for letting you down and everything. Even though I'm going to be in for the rest of my life, I'm sorry," Craddock, 21, softly said from the wheelchair he has been confined to since the fatal car crash he caused while fleeing a robbery scene on June 10, 2009.

Whoa! Someone got quite a scare this morning at the Convention Center Parking garage on North Broad Street, between Race and Cherry Streets, in Center City. A black Infiniti, with a driver inside, partially fell down a ground-level car lift before 10 a.m. Andrew Afandor, an employee with the 1st Choice Response Unit tow-truck company, who was there afterward waiting to tow the car away, said he heard this account from garage employees: A garage worker had gotten into the Infiniti G375, which was in front of a closed elevator door.

A 27-year-old man was charged in connection with a one-car crash in Pottstown that left two passengers dead and one critically injured, authorities said Tuesday. Acting on a tip, Pottstown detectives arrested Roger Tracy Malloy while he was bicycling down a street in the borough, apparently trying to flee the area, Montgomery County District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman and Pottstown Police Chief Mark Flanders said in a joint statement. Malloy was being held Tuesday at the Montgomery County Correctional Facility after failing to post $1 million bail.

A PHILADELPHIA JURY Wednesday begins deliberating the degree of guilt of two men charged in the deaths of three children and a young mother killed by a speeding car that jumped a Feltonville sidewalk minutes after the defendants committed an armed robbery in June 2009. The trial of Donta Craddock, 21, and Ivan Rodriguez, 23, concluded in Common Pleas Court Tuesday with the jury hearing from the mothers and a grandmother of the victims, from a wheelchair-bound Craddock and closing arguments from the case's attorneys.

Ivan Rodriguez needed money to get a city boot off of his car. Donta Craddock, who owned a .357 Magnum revolver, suggested that they take a motorcycle at gunpoint and sell it to an acquaintance. So, on June 10, 2009, just after 7:30 p.m., the two friends did just that on Rising Sun Avenue near Somerville. That's what Rodriguez told homicide detectives after he was arrested that day, and after four innocent victims were mowed down by the car that Craddock lost control of while fleeing.

A car struck three men painting a fence Saturday in Northeast Philadelphia, killing one of them and injuring the others, authorities said. The crash happened about 6:45 a.m. in the Bustleton section of the city, police said. A 42-year-old man was pronounced dead at the scene shortly after he was hit by the car. His name was not released. Two other painters were taken to Aria Hospital-Torresdale for treatment of minor injuries,officials said. Police said the 22-year-old driver was also taken there for treatment of shoulder pain.

A 92-year-old woman was fatally struck by a car Thursday when a fellow resident of a Cherry Hill senior housing complex lost control of the vehicle in the facility's parking lot, township police said. Rose Weber, who was pushing a walker in the lot of the Raymond and Gertrude R. Saltzman House in the 1400 block of Springdale Road, died at the scene shortly before 3 p.m. Authorities believe Shirley Braverman, 82, "stepped on the gas instead of the brake" while backing out of a space on the north end of the parking lot, Lt. Sean Redmond said.

Three people were injured, one critically, in a four-car pileup on the Martin Luther King Jr. Drive in Fairmount Park. Police are investigating the cause of the 8:20 a.m. crash near Montgomery Drive. Fire Department medics took three people to area hospitals, one of them in critical condition, a spokesman said. The pileup blocked the MLK Drive for a time.

PATCO ‘quiet car' program extended The PATCO commuter rail line will extend its "quiet car" program past June 1 while agency officials gather customer feedback. The three-month trial run of the program, which bans cellphone talking in the last car of all weekday trains, will be continued until a survey of passengers is completed. To offer an assessment, go to http://www.ridepatco.org/survey/index.html on the PATCO website during the next three weeks. If responses are positive, the program will be made permanent, PATCO officials said.