A security camera caught a bear and her cubs in New York opening an unoccupied minivan and searching it for food.

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In yet another edition of "why is James so afraid of bears?" a well-placed security camera caught a bear opening an unoccupied minivan to look for food.

That's right. This is another bear story. The video show the mama bear opening both the sliding back door and the driver's door to search the van before her four cubs joined her.

My aversion to bears has become well-known in the Binghamton area and it's because of videos like this. And videos like the bear that got stuck in an unoccupied SUV, or the story of a black bear that killed a woman's pet donkey, or the many videos of bears wandering through residential Vestal neighborhoods looking for food.

You know what all of those stories have in common? Dangerous animals getting far too close to civilization for someone like me to feel comfortable.

When I get in the car in the dark hours of the morning on my way into the WNBF studio, the absolute last thing I need to be worried about is if a bear has somehow broken into my car looking for food. Especially now that I know bears are smart enough to open two different kinds of doors. I only have the one kind of door so it offers very little protection to early morning bear wandering. And I don't have any food in my car so if I did come across a bear, it might decide that I'll be good enough for a quick breakfast snack.

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