People mistakenly think that the cars stolen most frequently are flashy sports cars and SUVs but actually the top three are rather innocent Honda and Toyota sedans! For a complete list of the top ten most stolen vehicles see the bottom of this article, now on to how to keep your vehicle from being stolen.
There are car theft rings all over the world who steal cars as a business. When we think of car thieves we may have in mind some kid taking a car and joyriding but auto theft is a huge business. These people will take orders for specific vehicles and then contact their local thieves to carry out the acquisition of the particular vehicles being sought. Here are some tips to make your vehicle less of a target for these would be thieves.
The first thing you can do is park your vehicle in guarded and secure parking areas. Car thieves don't want to be seen so they aren't going to steal a car that is on a lot monitored by cameras in most cases. You want to park your car in the most visible location you can find.
Another simple way to reduce the likelihood of theft is to always take your keys out of the ignition and bring them with you when you get out of your car. I know this may sound like just common sense but you would be astounded at the number of people who have their vehicle stolen while they are in the convenience store while leaving their car running. In many cases, especially when it is a kid looking for a joy ride, car theft is a crime of opportunity and leaving the keys in the car is just calling out to a thief to take your ride.
You can deter a thief from looking at your car as a target by doing things that would slow them down. For instance, you can parallel park your car tightly between other vehicles so that the thief would have a tough time getting the car out. They won't even look at stealing your car because it would take too long. The longer it takes them to get the car away the higher their chance of being caught.
It is thought by many that car alarms are unimportant as well but this is not the case. Why do you think insurance companies give you a discount if you have an anti theft device installed on your vehicle? Because they know that it works to guard against theft. An alarm represents two negatives to a car thief. One, an alarm going off would draw unwanted attention to their nefarious activities and secondly it takes more time to disable it.
Wondering how wanted your car is to thieves? Have a look at the top ten list of most stolen cars from State Farm:
