Car Theft And What You Need To Know

If you happen to live in any part of the UK and drive your own car then you need to educate yourself on the car theft patterns prevalent here so that you do not become the next victim of the dreadful car theft network.

You left your car sitting pretty on the roadside of your quiet area only to discover at the end of the day that the car has gone once and for all! Well, you are not the only one to experience this kind of tragedy. According to the Home Office some 40% of UK car crime is committed outside the owners home.

You can not even rest in peace by parking it inside your garage as some 1% of cars in UK are lifted right from the owner’s garage.

Similarly, 5% cars are stolen from the workplace car park, 14% from General street parking, 19% from Public car parks and 22% from Semi-private car parks.

These and other sensational car theft facts are revealed by the Home Office reports over different years. If the news of car thefts makes chills run down your spine, try to understand the general car theft pattern in the UK; it will provide you with ideas how to avoid common safety mistakes.

Here are the key findings of Home Office on the basis of the data provided by the Police National Computer (PNC), and information provided by the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA).

• Although car related thefts have fallen by 40% since 1997 according to the authoritative British Crime survey 2003/04, some 282,816 cars were stolen in England, Scotland and Wales in 2003.

• So what types of cars are at the higher risk? It is small saloon cars that are stolen most frequently. 12 out of 1,000 registered cars are stolen from the road.

• In the case of People Carriers and 4x4s, the risk is slightly lower—in these cases 6 cars are stolen from 1,000 registered cars.

• Do you think you are free to be a bit careless just because you drive a car as old as 13 and 14 years (registered in 1989 and 1990)? Well, you can not afford to be careless because it is these old cars that are faced with the highest risk —– with a theft rate of 31 cars per 1,000 cars.

• The younger cars in the UK roads—- aged between 1-5 years old—-run the lower risk of being stolen. These cars are stolen at the rate of 5 cars per 1,000 registered.

The cars that vanish more frequently from the UK roads

Despite repeated suggestions from the administration, car manufacturers did not seem to work on better security design of the cars. This led the UK government to circulate an index ranking different models of cars by their vulnerability to theft. Vauxhall Belmont was identified as the car with the overall highest risk of theft in 2003 with a theft rate of 99 cars per 1,000 registered.