America's 20 Best Cities To Have Your Car Stolen
June 21st, 2012 3:51 PM
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Want to get rid of your car? Move to Fresno, CA. According to data compiled by the National Insurance Crime Bureau (NICB), Fresno had 808 car thefts per 100,000 population in 2011 .
Laredo, Texas, had the most vehicle thefts in 2009. It dropped to number 53 in 2011. Increased police work drove down Laredo’s car theft rate, says Pro 8 News.
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Fifteen of the 20 cities are in California or Washington. However Oregon is absent. Lax laws and easy access to the deep water ports and Mexico as you go further south? Seattle has gotten "better" over the last couple of years - the rate was even higher. A lot of the theft previously was simple joy riding because the laws were so lax. The courts do catch and release and even adult offenders have to be caught/released something like 5 to 7 times before they see any serious county jail time. Juveniles? Pffffttt...they all but pat them on the head and tell them, "don't be seen driving stolen cars in these parts again, or we'll give you another lollipop."
For a long time wasn't Newark NJ at the top of this list? The fact that they are almost all now in California doesn't say good things to me about California.
Not surprised and I'd be surprised if many of those cars that were stolen were newer than 2004 when 99.99% of all cars sold had an immobilizer system. Mazda finally fitted their entry level car, the Mazda3 with it in 2004 when it made its debut, but the Protege and Protege5 missed out as I found out with my P5 (not, it's not been stollen but some punk got in and took a few sundry items, nothing of any real value and left potentially valuable items and never touched the way back where I had my cheap set of roadside tools in a Huffy bag. And I'd just put in a decent JVC double din head unit that weekend with USB, Aux and Bluetooth and it is still in the car. And this occurred in Seattle back in late May. As to the list, not surprising to say the least. And I should say that the guy from Safelite auto glass who came out to clean up and replace my driver's door window said he's seeing an increase in petty crimes of stealing basic stuff. Apparently, people are getting desperate in this economy as he'd just done 6 windows prior to mine.
Australia has a city notorious for car theft. It's called Logan.