The winter air of February blew softly as Dylan Ramlochan made his way back to his 2006 Scion XB. After a night out with friends, he wanted to enter dream land on top of his warm mattress and between his plush blankets, the cool side of the pillow up, of course. However, his plans for a restful night came to a halt after he tried to get inside of his car.

Ramlochan made a mistake that most, if not, many people make at least once in life. He locked his keys inside his vehicle. The feeling one can experience when this happens ranges from panic and fear to disappointment and anger. Ramlochan remembered a shocked feeling.

“We were leaving some party,” Ramlochan said. “We get back to the parking lot at Phase II. I started walking up the stairs and I looked for my card, because you need a card to get into Phase Two. I’m like ‘I can’t find my card. Better yet, I can’t even find my keys.’ So I was like hold up, pause. I pretty much ran down the stairs trying to figure out what was going on, got back to my car and yep, there they were sitting on the chair.”

The Texas A&M University-Commerce Police Department has noticed that locking keys inside vehicles occurs on a regular basis on campus with at least one to three incidents a day, the total number last year ranging in the hundreds. Despite the high number of vehicle key incidents that occur daily, A&M-Commerce UPD understands that this situation happens to everyone at least once. Lt. Jason Bone admitted that he has had interesting incidents with car keys himself.

“My wife used to work for the cable company and her office was in Greenville,” Bone said. “About once a month there for a while she was locking her keys in her car and I was having to drive to Greenville to get the keys out for her. The last time she did it, a friend of mine from the Greenville police went over and unlocked it for her. Well, I got home and I was mad, like ‘I’m tired of you locking your keys in your car.’ I put my car in park, shut the door, was going to go in and fuss at her and realized I locked my keys in my car as well.”

Concerning why people lock keys in their cars, Bone said that many factors play into the situation, including common things such as rushing and forgetfulness. However, there is one factor that Bone said plays a big part of it, the weather.

“Rainy days, people are in a hurry, thinking about getting their umbrella out,” Bone said. “They leave their lights on more on rainy days and they lock their keys in their cars more on rainy days.”

As for Ramlochan, these days he is making sure his keys are on him before he gets in his Scion and after he gets out.

“I’m a lot more careful,” Ramlochan said. “I double check before I even lock the doors, I keep a spare at my dad’s crib, and my lock opener, I keep it out in my room. So just in case I lock them in my car again, I shouldn’t have to look in the car again. I can just go look in my room.”