Every 44 seconds one vehicle in USA gets stolen.
Numbers FBI provided were terrifying.
Almost 230 vehicles are stolen per 100,000 US citizens and that’s just an average number.
Next time you drive your car to the big mall or stadium for important game, look at other vehicles on the parking lot. Probability says that some of them, even yours, might be stolen.
Statistics are even worse in some parts of the country.
Even though this type of crime isn’t as common as burglary or violent crimes, the fact that worries us is that motor theft, compared to others, rose last year, by 1.7%. That’s the first time in almost 10 years that that number increased, after 9 years of decreasing constantly.
So, how to protect you ride? Believe it or not in same cases, common sense is all you need.
The most popular places for thieves
Judging by the stats that National Insurance Crime Bureau published recently, citizens of The Golden State have it rough! Out of top ten cities where car theft is most popular way of illegally earning money, eight of them are in California. Several years in a row, the most popular destination for car thieves was Fresno, but this year Redding, California, took lead position. Number of thefts in each city, easily exceed 20 vehicles per day, just to let you know how grim the situation is.
Here is the complete list:
1. Redding, Calif.
2. Spokane-Spokane Valley, Wash.
3. Vallejo-Fairfield, Calif.
4. San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, Calif.
5. San Francisco/Oakland/Hayward, Calif.
6. Yakima, Wash.
7. Stockton, Calif.
8. Bakersfield-Delano, Calif.
9. Fresno, Calif.
10. Modesto, Calif.
NICB also mentioned top ten states with the highest car theft ratings in the country, and after California, you risk leaving your vehicle unattended the most in Texas, Florida or Georgia. Illinois, Michigan, Washington, Ohio, Arizona and New York are also really close with these dark statistics.
Now, if you live in either of these states, you know better than to leave your car with doors open, but if you are visiting, maybe it will be better if you read this whole article.
What are the most popular vehicles?
It is interesting to note that thieves have different tastes from state to state, and you might actually be safe if you are driving a vehicle that is unpopular in that area. Of course, we still wouldn’t tempt them.
When criminals are looking for vehicle to steal, they will always think about what model and make is the easiest to sell and turn into cash, and depending on that, some vehicles are more wanted than others. For example, American vehicles are popular carjackers choice in Detroit and Chicago, pickup trucks disappear more in Phoenix, Houston or Albuquerque, and Japanese imported rides are more popular on East coast and, as we mentioned, particularly on the West coast.
Differences became even larger if you ever step out of the US, since pickup trucks are not very popular in the Europe, and compared to that Asia is whole another story.
However, there are some evergreen classics for thieves regardless of what part of the country you are living in. Every year Highway Data Loss Institute publishes the list of the most commonly stolen vehicles compiled with data from various big insurance companies. So far, Cadillac Escalade was on the top of this list, the spot which it held for many years until this years data placed Ford’s F-Series in front. Here’s the complete list:
1. Ford F-250 Crew model with four-wheel drive (starting price, $36,270), seven out of every 1,000 insured vehicles stolen.
2. Chevrolet Silverado 1500 Crew model ($32,710), 6.7 vehicles stolen.
3. Chevrolet Avalanche 1500 ($36,975), 6.1 vehicles stolen.
4. GMC Sierra 1500 Crew model ($35,885), 6.1 vehicles stolen.
5. Ford F-350 Crew model with four-wheel drive ($37,370), 5.6 vehicles stolen.
6. Cadillac Escalade with four-wheel drive ($67,290), 5.5 vehicles stolen.
7. Chevrolet Suburban 1500 (45,360), 5.4 vehicles stolen.
8. GMC Sierra 1500 Extended Cab model ($28,610), 4.7 vehicles stolen.
9. GMC Yukon ($41,760), 4.5 vehicles stolen.
10. Chevrolet Tahoe ($41,400), 4.4 vehicles stolen.
You can see a pattern here — only trucks and SUVs are really attractive for criminals. Those vehicles are popular to start with, but they are also expensive and chopped or sold on the black market, they make good profits to criminals. With all risks attached to this type of illegal activity they don’t want to take the vehicle which they can not sell quickly or at all.
Having this in mind, other end of the theft rates list makes sense, since the least stolen vehicles are unpopular and cheap cars. Toyota Sienna is the most commonly neglected by the car thieves, with Jeep Compass, Volkswagen Tiguan, Audi A4, Acura RDX and Toyota Matrix also near with this positive trend. Some of these vehicles aren’t produced anymore like Lexus HS 250, while others like Dodge Journey and Jeep Compass might soon be part of the history too. For those reasons, those vehicles might not be the ‘best buy’ choices and anyway, you should not feel ‘safe’ with them, since those cars also tend to disappear.
The only way to protect your vehicle and greatly decrease chances for it to be stolen, is to know the following rules.
How to keep your vehicle from getting stolen?
Recovery rates of stolen vehicles aren’t that great, even though some police departments are dedicated to fighting this type of criminal activity. It is obvious that you should do whatever you can to protect your vehicle in the first place and for some, you only need common sense. That’s, unfortunately something that some Americans lack, according to stats on National Insurance Crime Bureau. It is incredible how many people do stupid stuff with the ‘oh, no way it will happen to me’ and that’s why we are going to mention even those, most basic rules in hope that it gets to these people.
Always lock the doors – Seams unnecessary to write this down, but you would be surprised how many people neglect this rule. By NICB analysis 1 out of 5 Americans don’t lock their vehicle before leaving it unattended. By doing this they are making their vehicle easy target and the whole job easier for car thieves, who will get away from the scene faster.
If you leave your vehicle idling the whole process gets even quicker for them.
Never leave spare keys inside of a vehicle – I never forgot that scene from Terminator 2 when Arnold Schwarzenegger sits in driver’s seat and John Connor pulls down sun visor, just to reveal spare keys for a vehicle were hidden there. It’s the oldest trick in the book and that’s why so many criminals know about it. No matter how creative you get in hiding your spare keys, we wouldn’t recommend it, since someone else will find it eventually. Absolutely never, ever leave your keys in ignition too. No matter why would you need to do such thing and for how long — don’t!
Remove all valuables from the vehicle – According to the stats, more than half of the US don’t follow this rule: leaving purses, wallets, mail (which can lead to identity theft) or various expensive items like iPads, portable gaming consoles or other electronic devices. If you also neglect the rule about locking your doors this will be ‘easy money’ (another Terminator 2 reference) for not-so-honest passerby. If your vehicle is locked, your windows might get smashed, which happens more often than you might think.
The best idea would be to take everything out before leaving the vehicle, but if you can’t for whatever reason, than at least hide it from the plain sight.
Be careful where you park your ride – The best thing here would be to garage your car, truck or SUV, since then it wouldn’t be on the street and it wouldn’t be such an easy prey. If you live in the city, this might be difficult decision for you, since renting garage isn’t the cheapest option, but if you have new vehicle it might save you a lot more cash. If you decide to leave it in the streets, park it in the well lit area, preferably in a safe neighborhood. Parts of the town with high crime rates should be avoided at all costs.
Keep your car in a good shape – There’s this theory where if you maintain appearance of your vehicle, it is much less likely to be stolen. It kind of make sense: if it looks neglected it is more likely it doesn’t have alarm and that the owner doesn’t care about it and hence, won’t notice it missing any time soon.
Have an alarm – Even alarm sticker or blinking red light inside of your ride might be enough if your alarm isn’t really working, since it will make carjackers look at your vehicle as a tougher job to pull off and they might decide to go for another vehicle in the lot. However, we would recommend actually installing good alarm in your vehicle, preferably the one that can notify you or the police wirelessly when it’s activated.
What’s it good for if you can’t hear it?
Use other safety measures – Everything else you can throw in your vehicle isn’t impossible for a car thief to figure out, but if he sees that you have alarm, steering wheel locking mechanism, or even a detachable steering wheel and hidden kill switches, he might decide to avoid bothering with it and again chose something that is easier to do. Carjackers are getting better everyday, overcoming everything that gets invented to fight them and it sure looks like that battle they will never lose, but as long as you tell them that you won’t give up that easily — they might.
Glorious manual transmission – To real automotive fans this might sound stupid, but so many people don’t know how to drive stick manual. Car enthusiast might choose manual transmission because of better control over vehicle, but due to this infamous stat, with it, their vehicle might be even safer from theft. Recently, there were couple of stories in the news where thieves were caught because they got confused by this ‘unthinkable new technology’.
If you never thought about the possibility of your vehicle getting stolen, please stop and think about it now. Think about what can you do to protect it.
We gave you few suggestions, do you have any better one?