Prevent Theft from Your Car
Cars get broken into on a daily basis. Here are a few helpful tips on how to avoid having your vehicle broken into
Steps
- Choose a parking space: There are many types of places to park. You can park on the street, in an open lot, in a garage, or in a parking lodge (these are often underground, and a favourite target for thieves). The ideal parking space involves as much traffic around it as possible, be it foot traffic or other vehicles passing by, the more people around, the less likely your vehicle is to be broken into. The ideal parking space is also in a decent area, where there are few homeless (as they are the most often ones to break into a vehicle), and the best spaces are between exits. The more effort, and the more risk, the less chance that anything will happen to your vehicle
- Make sure that you have a car alarm installed. This may seem like a no-brainer, but thieves are less likely to break into a vehicle that has an alarm, as they want as little attention
- Remove all valuables. This also seems like a no-brainer, but people leave things in their vehicles all the time, remember: No Profit, No Crime. To clarify, this DOES NOT mean "let's just put everything in the trunk" as most trunks are very easily accessible
- Leave the vehicle as open looking as possible. This means that you should always leave your centre console, glove compartment, and any other "cubby holes" open, so that when a thief looks into your vehicle, they will see that there is nothing worth taking, and they will move on to the next vehicle
- If you do become a theft victim, make sure that the first thing you do is file a police report, the sooner the better, and pay attention to details. Try to figure out how the vehicle was broken into (eg. Window taken off the frame, pry marks on the window frame, or a completely smashed window). Call the company that owns the lot that you are parked in and report the incident.
Warnings
- Broken glass often has blood on it, and some of the thieves do have blood diseases, be careful
- Anybody breaking into a vehicle does not want to get caught, make sure not to approach them, they could be carrying anything from knives to screwdrivers to syringes
- There is no such thing as a perfect strategy, sometimes people leave things in their vehicles unintentionally, so there is always a chance that you will become a theft victim
- The police often tow vehicles if they have been broken into
