Auto Crime Prevention
- The single most important factor in deterring auto crimes is being selective in where you park your car. Park in well lighted and well populated areas.
- Lock your car. It may seem obvious, but you wouldn't believe how many people forget.
- Traffic flow is important. You want to park your car in the areas with high vehicle and pedestrian traffic.
- Car alarms, can be useful, but are often ignored.
- Have a kill switch installed and use a club-type device to protect your car, in addition to your alarm.
- Steering column sleeves are helpful in preventing car theft where cracking the column is necessary.
- Tinted windows provide extra coverage for thieves who break into cars to steal radios, air bags, or the car itself. Avoid heavily tinted windows.
- Keep you car free of ALL items. Clothes, jackets, bags, boxes, sporting equipment and other items frequently left in cars, attract a thief's attention.
- Thieves will break into a car to look into boxes or bags, in order to see if they contain anything of value. Even if it contains nothing, you may be left with a broken window or door lock.
- Have your vehicle identification number etched in your car's glass. This deters theft. Re-tagging a stolen vehicle is too expensive if all the windows need to be replaced.
- Any one of the above methods is no guarantee that your car will never be stolen or broken into. However, using as many of these devices as possible, makes a "car shopper" more likely to pass up your vehicle.