Could the dichotomy here be from cultural differences? (pondering...) In California, your car is an extension of your ego (mostly, and most obviously) and I think people would get bent out of shape if some grubby skater hooked onto their car. Elsewhere, the car is not a cultural status symbol...merely a means of transport...and (leafing through my Communist Manifesto) should be considered public property since it's used in a public setting.

I'll personalize this: I can see my car from my office window, and it puckers my sphincter when someone puts a flyer under my windshield wiper. I've never been 'skitched' (the benefit of less than 1" clearance from tire to wheelwell), but if some jackass touched my car, I'd have a problem with it. It's MINE, not YOURS. I spent time washing it, I'm the one paying to maintain it, I worked my butt off to pay for it...and anybody does anything to it, I'll be irked...nay...flabbergasted to the point of action.

By 'action', that could mean slowing down, flicking said offender into the nearest ditch, or seeing how tight a line I can hold around the nearest K rail. The only benefit of living in Liberal California is that skater grommit fingerprints could be considered 'vandalism' and I could charge him with reckless endangerment and emotional hardship for making me stress about him.

/yeah...I was a skitchen' skater in my day. Lots of fun, but hey, it wasn't my car, and the 3 or 4 wheelwheels I dished out 'accidentally' by pulling too hard around a corner weren't MY fault. The car was THERE, it was the drivers' fault.