Auto thieves look for an easy target, and they seem to be hitting a bulls eye time and time again lately here on the Sunshine Coast.
For the past few weeks, the weekly police report submitted to us by the Sunshine Coast RCMP has listed numerous auto theft cases. In almost all of them, the thefts were a result of vehicle owners not locking their vehicles. And it gets worse: in some cases vehicle owners left their keys inside, too. Why not just leave the engine running and put up a big sign saying "Auto thieves: please take my car for a spin because I really don't care."
The matter of leaving vehicles unlocked, making them an easy target, is an alarming trend on so many levels.
For one, the vehicle owner has the painstaking problem of determining what was stolen, making a report to police and repairing any damage. (Although, if you leave your vehicle unlocked, at least there's less chance of damage from a break-in.)
Secondly, there is really not too much the RCMP can do. It's one thing if you properly locked the vehicle, didn't leave your keys inside and used an anti-theft device, the best deterrent for would-be auto thieves, according to ICBC. But when vehicle owners are too careless or stupid to not lock their vehicles and leave their keys inside, what do you expect the RCMP to do? After all, the only one at fault is you, the vehicle owner, for not taking responsibility for your own property. How much RCMP time is being taken up on needless paper work and investigation tracking down auto thieves and missing vehicles when those vehicles would not have been targeted in the first place had people used some common sense?
And thirdly, and this one hurts the most, is that according to ICBC, even though each claim is assessed on an individual basis, claims on theft of unlocked vehicles are still paid. So that means that every time someone is careless enough to not lock his or her vehicle, that vehicle is broken into, and the owner makes a claim with ICBC, everyone pays. Why should we all have to foot the bill for someone else's carelessness? And how much are our ICBC premiums going up because people are not locking their vehicles? We can only imagine.
According to ICBC, claims for theft of vehicles and vehicle break-ins have both declined across the province by 15 per cent from 2008 to 2009. These statistics could be better if not for places like the Sunshine Coast. And we're certain that some Coast vehicle owners aren't the only culprits and that our community is not unlike many others in this province where people leave their vehicles unsecured and leave their keys inside. The bottom line is, this is a statistic that none of us on the Sunshine Coast should be proud of.
Use some common sense and lock your vehicle. An ounce of prevention can go a long way.
