Vehicle crime like most crime is opportunist, and preventable. leaving items on display increases the chance of theft, a couple of seconds to place items in the boot or remove them altogether could save you hours on the phone to the Police and Insurance company.
- - A sat nav left attached to the windscreen
- - Mobile phone in the charger
- - A handbag left in the footwell
- - Spare change left in the centre console
- - A laptop bag left on the parcel shelf
- - Shopping left of the back seat
Yes the laptop bag might be empty, or the spare change might only be a couple of pounds, the mobile phone might not be the most up to date but a criminal will cause hundreds of pounds worth of damage to your vehicle to find this out.
This is most common with sat navs. Often people will remove the sat nav and hide it in the glovebox or under a seat, but leave the cradle in the windscreen and charger wires on display. Criminals see the cradle or wire and, if they get the chance, will break a window or force a door lock so that they can search the glovebox or under the seats. This means that even if your sat nav is not in the car, your car is still damaged. We recomend that you always move the cradle out of the windscreen and hide all wires out of sight.
South Yorkshire Police are currently running a vehicle crime reduction scheme where Officers on patrol will identify vulnerable vehicles with items left on display that may cause the vehicle to be attacked.
Officers will note the registration number and make of vehicle, time and date, location and items left on display. South yorkshire Police will then write to the vehicle owner and advise them regarding vehicle security.