Stolen Cars - any way to help?

RandomAccess

Hi,
just wandered over from the motors forum. We seem to be getting a lot of stolen car reports recently. Perhaps people are becoming more social media aware or maybe there is an uptick in car theft. And almost always a break-in now to get the keys.

Generally people are asked to provide some photos and distinguishing marks and people say they will keep an eye out. Now if its a distinctive car theres some chance of it being spotted, but otherwise its a bit of a needle in a haystack.

Perhaps it sounds dumb, but it might be helpful if people knew the potential locations where cars are stored, and how likely it is they are still in the jurisdiction.

Also, a lot of the time people are asked to call eFlow to see if they went through tolls. And many say theres no point as they will have swapped the reg plates. I guess it could be useful to know if,

- Reg plate swapping is as common as people suggest
- GPS Jamming is as common as people suggest. (A UK company has created a jamming detector)
- Are there any suggestions on how to deter thefts, window etching of Reg or Vin perhaps?

Obviously don't want to give away any trade secrets, but I think more could be done by taking advantage of people power on enthusiast forums.

I know its a bit utopian, but a criminal without a car probably isn't going to be able to "work". Within a few years I expect people with cloud connected 1080p car cameras could opt into ANPR service provision which checks against a stolen car Database, this is only a matter of time, similar systems already perform realtime two way traffic updates from satnavs.

But back to basics.. what might people do to help?

RandomAccess

RandomAccess wrote: »

Hi,
just wandered over from the motors forum. We seem to be getting a lot of stolen car reports recently. Perhaps people are becoming more social media aware or maybe there is an uptick in car theft. And almost always a break-in now to get the keys.

Generally people are asked to provide some photos and distinguishing marks and people say they will keep an eye out. Now if its a distinctive car theres some chance of it being spotted, but otherwise its a bit of a needle in a haystack.

Perhaps it sounds dumb, but it might be helpful if people knew the potential locations where cars are stored, and how likely it is they are still in the jurisdiction.

Also, a lot of the time people are asked to call eFlow to see if they went through tolls. And many say theres no point as they will have swapped the reg plates. I guess it could be useful to know if,

- Reg plate swapping is as common as people suggest
- GPS Jamming is as common as people suggest. (A UK company has created a jamming detector)
- Are there any suggestions on how to deter thefts, window etching of Reg or Vin perhaps?

Obviously don't want to give away any trade secrets, but I think more could be done by taking advantage of people power on enthusiast forums.

I know its a bit utopian, but a criminal without a car probably isn't going to be able to "work". Within a few years I expect people with cloud connected 1080p car cameras could opt into ANPR service provision which checks against a stolen car Database, this is only a matter of time, similar systems already perform realtime two way traffic updates from satnavs.

But back to basics.. what might people do to help?

Don't leave their keys near doors or open windows.
Lock your house fully.
Install an alarm.
Arm said alarm.