There are many ways to prevent auto theft; however, we have seven things you can do right now to prevent a criminal from breaking in to your car and even stopping them from stealing it outright.
The biggest preventative measure you can implement immediately is just not to tempt car thieves:
Hide your valuables!
Do not leave valuables in your car or hide them. Most criminals are skittish, so deterrents can be very effective. The visual of a steering wheel club or security sticker can make criminals think your car is not worth their time.
If a thief makes it into your vehicles, do not let them steal it. You can do this by using immobilizers or kill switches.
Lastly, when you leave your car unattended, park it in a spot that will make it unlikely for criminals to target it.
If you implement these seven tips, your chances of suffering an auto crime should go down drastically.
Don't Keep Valuables in Your Car
To avoid your car from getting broken into, do not keep items in it. No, not just valuables, all items.
Many car thieves today are unsophisticated drug fueled predators. Even a pair of dollar store sunglasses on your dash could give them an idea to break into your car.
Unfortunately, in today's world, many criminals under the influence of hard drugs are given free rein to commit crimes such as auto theft. This is typically due to the courts not having resources to deal with so many petty criminals.
These criminals are running so rampant without consequences that they are even given a name by the public:
Frequent flyer.
It is because of frequent flyers you cannot keep any items in your vehicle. Even an item only worth a few bucks can get them a small drug fix. So, do not keep any items in your vehicle.
How to Stop Auto Crime Summary
Don't keep items in your car
Use tint
Have a security deterrent
Immobilize your vehicle
Park in the light
Park in the open
Avoid high crime areas
Prevent a Car Break in With Tint
You can go a step further from just not leaving items in your car to getting the whole vehicle tinted.
Blocking out the interior with tint is a great way to avoid all sorts of auto crime.
This is due to the fact that many car thieves simply move on when minor deterrents are presented to them.
If a car thief sees that your car does not have a visible interior, they will not want to risk breaking into it if it contains no items to steal.
To prevent theft with tint, you will need five percent on your rear.
The percent rating for tint indicates how much light passes thru the window.
This means five percent does not allow much light to pass, making it difficult to see thru. Unfortunately, many places ban putting tint on your front door windows even though this greatly benefits frequent flyers.
However, if you are in this unfortunate situation, five percent on the back can still make the entire vehicle dark enough to prevent visibility from out of the car.
Just don't leave stuff in the front.
If your government lets you safeguard your car from frequent flyers by front door tint, talk to a tint specialist for the best and safest tint percentage. If you can't drive safely with any tint, just avoid tinting altogether and don't keep anything in your car.
Vehicle Security with Visual Deterrents
Car thieves can still see inside your vehicle if it is tinted, they just need to press their face against the glass.
This will be rare, but it still happens. So, you'll want to protect your vehicle further with visual deterrents.
This can be things such as
steering wheel clubs
security stickers
It's known that thieves can easily bypass a club; however, stopping a car theft is not the point, deterring the thief is. Usually, a car thief sees a club as an indication that the vehicle owner is security conscious and probably does not keep valuables in their car.
Vehicle Immobilizer
If the deterrents above fail to prevent a break in, you are not going to want your car stolen.
You can prevent this with an immobilizer.
You can immobilize your car at a very low cost with a hidden kill switch. However, your car might already have an immobilizer:
chip key
proximity fob
Of course, a determined thief could still steal your vehicle with these preventative measure but it will at least deter them from doing so. As we mentioned multiple times, small deterrents often make criminals move on.
Don't Park in the Dark
Setting up your vehicle to prevent car theft is great; however, simply avoiding parking in bad spots helps as well.
These bad spots can be parking areas without light.
You want to avoid giving thieves the ability to have cover by darkness. Parking under a bright lamp post is a great place to have adequate light on your car.
Park in the Open
Light will prevent thieves from having cover to break in your car, the same principal can be implemented with parking out in the open.
Unfortunately, parking near other vehicles can give criminals cover. A vehicle out in the open is more visible to the public; therefore, will be more of a deterrent for criminals.
Avoid High Crime Locations
Lastly, just avoid parking in high crime areas altogether.
Don't park where the criminals are.
Many high crime areas have visual cues so you'll be able to determine if the environment is safe. Furthermore, individual city blocks can have both high crime and low crime locations.
Areas of a block that are dark or have high fencing can give criminals cover to break in your car whereas parking in front of building, in the same area will have lower crime. This is due to criminals wanting to avoid being seen.
Just avoid parking directly in front of a residence.
Many homeowners have an inflated sense of ownership and believe the area directly in front of their house belongs to them.
This may cause the homeowner to vandalize your vehicle or confront you, leading to an assault.
Parking in front of apartment buildings or rowhouses is a great way to avoid this.
Yes, there are many more ways to protect your car from crime. However, if you want to immediately start implementing practices with low effort that will help you from being a victim, then these seven security measures will work great for you. This starts by
hiding your valuables
having deterrents
tinting your windows
installing an immobilizer
parking in the light
avoiding high crime areas
Hopefully, with these measures, you will never have to be a victim of auto crime.
About the Author
Peter Sandru is an Instructor & Co-Founder of Novel Data Investigative Learning with over 15 years working in security, including preventing and responding to auto crime. Peter has spent more than a decade conducting security operations throughout the world, primarily for corporations, law firms, and government agencies. Peter has assisted in the creation of numerous security training programs in various capacities.