New Trend for Vehicle Theft ... 

The most recent trends for vehicle theft has been affected by manufacturers improvements to electronic immobilisors, that's the micro chip within the ignition key. So to steal a car you need the key, this has caused a trend to develop of the keys being stolen in the course of house burglary. This can be in the form of a pole being inserted through a letter box with a hook attached to obtain keys on show ie hall table, keys hung on a hook near to a window basically anything on show that can be seen from outside the property. The targets tend to be the high class end of motor vehicles, but trends change and any recent model motor vehicle can be targeted. There was a spate of VW Golfs particularly high specification TDi's being targeted.

So the advice given by Police is don't leave your keys in view of windows letter boxes and the like. There has been a campaign suggesting hiding keys or taking them upstairs to bed. Another common target for car thief's has been petrol forecourts driver obtains fuel goes to pay and leaves keys or belongings in car on display, so again take your keys with you at all times.

If you can afford to buy something with factory fitted security, this will most likely help keep your insurance down and mean it is harder to steal.

In particular electronic immobilisers - which the government made compulsory in 1998 - have had a great impact on the numbers of car thefts.

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