One of the most disheartening things to see in day to day life is the sight of your car keys inside your locked car. You may be in a hurry to get to an appointment or to get to or from work, but you know that your schedule has just taken a turn for the worse. So if you find yourself asking the question "what are some tips for locking my keys in my car?" then here are a few bits of advice that may help you get inside the car and also help stop you from getting locked out in future.

Tips for Locking My Keys in My Car 

Some tips for locking my keys in my car include keeping calm, checking the simple things first, check the trunk of the car and more. 

Keep Calm

The most important thing to do in this situation is to not panic. Panicking will just make it harder to find a solution and may make you miss the obvious. Close your eyes and take a few deep breaths before you start searching for solutions to unlock your lock. 

Check the Simple Things First

If the car is sitting in your garage then you or whoever drove it last may not have bothered to lock the doors. Go round and check each door to see if it can be opened. Also check if any of the windows are wound down. You should be able to climb or reach through a large enough window gap and even a slight gap in a window may allow you to use something as a lever to reach the keys and recover them. Also check your locking mechanism -- you might not need a key to open your car lock. 

Does anyone else have a spare key that you can borrow or is there one hidden nearby if you are at home? Your spouse or someone else who uses the vehicle may have a spare that they have hidden as a backup key, or they may have one with them. Call them and see if they can help. Even if you are away from the house you can probably get a ride to and from your home to grab a spare key left back there.

Check the Trunk of the Car

Check if the car boot is unlocked. If so then you may be able to get through into the cabin of the car from the trunk. You can usually remove the panel behind the rear seat and then unbolt the seat to get through. In the case of hatchbacks the seat will fold down, so you will just need to unlatch it.

See if You Can Reach the Latch

Many older cars have a post lock on the inside of the door. This is a small lever that you can lift up to unlock the door. If you have something flexible such as a wire coat hanger or a length of household insulation wire then you may be able to squeeze it through between the window and frame and hook it around the post lock handle to lift it and unlock the door. Shoelaces can also be used by tying a loop in them and feeding them through the top window gap to loop around the post lock and lasso it up. You'll probably need something thin and rigid to help push the shoelace through though. A credit card may work for this.

If there's no post lock then you may still be able to reach the inside door latch with your wire. Take a look from the other side of the car and see if you can work out the position and alignment of the door latch to try and reach it with whatever you have available.

Call a Professional

If there's no easy solution then it's time to call a professional. You may belong to an automobile roadside assistance service in which case you can just give them a call and have them unlock the car for you since they’ll know how to work with different types of door locks and handles. With more modern cars they may even be able to unlock the car remotely. If you don't belong to one of these services then you can still get one to help you. Check the phone book to see if there is someone listed that you can call to help you out.

Prevention for the Future

It's a good idea to have both a spare key to your house and to your vehicle hidden around your yard in a place that an intruder wouldn't think to look. This can leave both the car and house vulnerable though so be careful in hiding the keys. You may also want to keep a spare key in your purse or wallet.

You might like to consider becoming a member of an automobile roadside assistance service. This can get you out of trouble if you have a car breakdown or if you lock your keys in the car again.

Bottom Line

If you've ever found yourself asking "where can I find some tips for locking my keys in my car?" these should help you resolve the situation. Prevention is the better course of action though, so think about what you can do to stop this problem from occurring to begin with. Locking your keys in the car is an inevitable mistake that pretty much everyone will make at some point, so try to minimize the chance of it happening and the rest of the keys going with it such as your house keys, to you and maximize your ability to deal with it if it does.