What Should You Do If You Lose Your Car Keys?

We’ve all been there. Losing a wallet or purse, a pair of keys or our mobile phone can be a massive inconvenience. With a wallet or purse, we lose our cards, cash identification, and necessary keepsakes. With our keys, we lose access to every single lock provided to use, and certainly our vehicles. When losing our phones, we lose an expensive device, but also all of our locally-hosted personal information. It’s no wonder that device security measures have become even more thorough in recent years, even allowing you to wipe your phone remotely.

The immediate issue, especially if you’re out and about or at work, involves gaining access to your vehicle. But what should you do if you notice your keys are missing, have searched for them, and can’t find them anywhere? 

Don’t worry. You can resolve this issue with a few simple steps, but it will require a little planning and the willingness to wait for a little while. Let’s consider a simple guide that should help you in most cases:

Speak To Your Parking Attendant

If you’re parked at work or in a public place, then it might be worth tracking down the parking administrator or the security responsible for the parking lot at your workplace. Before this issue is resolved, you may need to wait for someone to arrive and help you with this issue, or perhaps leave your vehicle overnight. In some cases, you may be able to keep paying for more time in the parking space to avoid a ticket, but speaking to your administrator or the parking warden to explain the situation and what you’re doing about it can grant you a little leniency. It might be that the parking warden at your place of work allows you to keep the vehicle on the premises overnight while you take a taxi home, for instance, provided you accept that the business is not responsible for any break-ins that might occur.

At the very least, speaking to them can help reduce your stress and enjoy being accommodated temporarily. Don’t fear asking – you haven’t committed a mortal sin by losing your car keys, it can happen to the best of us.

Contact A Professional Auto Locksmith

Every auto locksmith is worth their weight in gold, primarily because they can help you in a range of ways. Contacting them immediately should be a priority. They can help you get into your vehicle should you prove ownership, and they can even program transponders as necessary. If your key has snapped in the ignition or if it’s broken, they can replace this too.

Depending on the scope of the problem the solution may take only a little time or your proof of ownership may take a little longer to source, but either way, an auto locksmith can help you resolve the issue entirely.

Reserve & Commission A New Set Of Keys

In the unlikely event that the locksmith cannot provide you with a new set of keys (often, this is the cheapest option too), then it’s worth contacting your car insurance provider for an additional set. 

Alternatively, vehicle breakdown services can achieve this, or a franchised car dealership should be able to provide the same necessity also. While you’re at it, purchasing a small GPS transponder you can connect with a mobile phone app and attach to your keychain means that the next time you lose your keys, you’ll be more likely to source them. Don’t think this to be patronizing advice, even the most brilliant people walking the Earth have lost their keys more than once in their lifetime.

Call Contacts To Arrange Alternate Travel

Of course, sometimes you might just need to take a ride home so that you can recoup, regather, and provide the evidence necessary that a locksmith may need. For instance, asking a coworker for a ride home, or asking them to call a taxi so you can go home and pick your children up from school can be very important.

Having these numbers in your address book and calling in a favor from time to time can make the process a little easier, so you don’t have to spend hours in a car park. Of course, only in rare cases will you not be able to access the vehicle immediately when the auto locksmith arrives, but it’s nice having those provisions in place.
With this advice, losing your car keys will remain an inconvenience, but by no means the end of the world. It’s your vehicle, still, and you’re entitled to find a way of using it again. Just try not to tell anyone that you found your keys in your desk at work if you do happen to come across them again – saving face is always part of the strategy.