You'd think that after stealing a car, you'd know better than to stop for a minute to chat with the police about the best way to get where you're going. You'd think that, and you'd be quite wrong.

Before you judge too harshly, you need to remember that there aren't a lot of copies of "Stealing Cars For Dummies" still in print, so it stands to reason that a newbie in the world of grand theft might make a mistake or two.

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And that's exactly what happened to a man named Lafayette Moore. According to a story up at Patch.com, Joliet police say he stole a car from the BP Amoco gas station in Joliet late Friday afternoon. The police say Mr. Moore drove the stolen car several miles toward Joliet's far east side only to ask a Joliet officer for some help in finding his way to Interstate 80.

After the Joliet cops helpfully gave Moore the information he was looking for, "they quickly realized that the vehicle that Mr. Moore was driving matched the description of a vehicle that had just been stolen." As you have probably already figured out, the Joliet police then quickly pulled the car over and arrested the alleged car thief.

Stealing cars is definitely not cool in any way, but I think what really bothers me about it is the fact that Illinois is constantly maligned by not only the rest of the nation, but also by those of us who live here. We've got stunningly high taxes, huge unemployment problems, citizens packing up and leaving right and left, and arguably the most corrupt state government in the United States. Adding in stupid criminals seems like piling on.

I did a quick search for other bits of stupidity shown by Illinois criminals, and there was no shortage of stories. A few really good ones can be found at OnlyInYourState.com/Illinois, like another car thief who, after stealing a vehicle and being caught, denied having anything to do with the crime. Until the cops searched the car and found a pair of needle-nose pliers, a pen light, and a print out from the internet about different ways to break into and hotwire a car.

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I also enjoyed reading about the Illinois woman who worked at a bowling alley and decided to rob it. She wanted to make it look like she tried to fight off the robbers, so she hit herself in the head with a bowling ball to make it look real. It did look real, and the police got to watch her do it over and over again when they looked at the surveillance video.

Check out more Illinois dumb criminals by clicking here.

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