Stolen Cars

One insurance site I visit published the vehicle theft rates for the last year. The National Insurance Crime Bureau compiles the list each year and rates the 10 metropolitan areas with the highest level of thefts and the ten types of vehicles with the highest number of thefts. No the 1959 Edsel is not on the list. But surprisingly, this year California had six of the top ten metropolitan areas. Modesto ranks #1, followed by Stockton (3), Visalia (5), Sacramento (7), San Diego (8) and Fresno (9). If you look at the six areas - five are in the Central Valley. That is pretty amazing. San Francisco, Riverside and Bakersfield finished right out of the top ten. And we have 14 of the top 30. The rates are based on thefts per 1000 population.

The bureau suggests that motorists use a layered program for protecting their vehicle which would first alarm the vehicle and then offer an immobilizing device and then a tracking device. Those sound like pretty good ideas to me.