I remember seeing an article in the newspaper many years ago that said the most commonly stolen cars were those eight years old or older.
The reason for this was the new technology of electronic door openers for cars. Car thieves simply didn’t have this technology.
But they were about to get it as evidenced by the last quite awhile of extreme car thefts. And once they had the way to break this technology, of course auto thefts increased the most for the most desired vehicles. If you have to jump through hoops to get an old econo car or a super desirable SUV, which are you going to take? That’s right. All the prestige cars were extremely targeted,
And we got soft in that era of almost no car thefts. The Club ads disappeared and that industry fell on hard times. Jails held fewer car thieves. Allowing the government to not build enough jails for the population increase.
Police budgets for car theft went down. When there are other pressing needs for police, most got reassigned.
But the thieves did figure out the technology. Not only did car theft increase back to old levels, car thefts became more dangerous. Owners would be held at gunpoint to give up their keys. Home invasions looking for just car keys began to become common,
Because we softened there weren’t enough cells for all the thieves caught. So the thieves would get out on bail more easily.
Once again car theft departments of the police swelled to previous proportions.
Prevention had to step up and the government tried to educate us better on how to keep our cars.
Now car owners all have these fancy electronic keys. In the past they saved everyone money. Then they were responsible for more thefts than ever. And now we’re back to about the same amount of thefts we used to see,
Was anything learned? Was that brief little golden age worth it?
