Dr. Chris de Kock: Consultant/Analyst: Crime, Violence, and Crowd Behaviour
Theft of motor vehicles in the East of Pretoria is unacceptably high. For example, an average of respectively nearly two vehicle/s are stolen each day in Brooklyn and Garsfontein precincts. Much of this can be prevented by smarter parking and locking behaviour by vehicle drivers.
Drivers should as far as possible only park at parking areas where there are both security officers and car guards. Through analysis of theft of motor vehicle tendencies, a clear picture has now emerged, where most of the cases were parked vehicles on the pavement in front of businesses, where the vehicle thieves know the victim will spend some time inside the business, without having a view on the vehicle. Examples of these are hair, beauty and nail salons, medical, dental, eye and veterinary practices, legal practices and property agents. These business premises are usually located inside a residence with no parking on the premises. So, customers park on the pavement in front or across the street of the business and there is no car guard, security guard or cameras. If one visits such businesses often, one should try to convince the owner to at least put up a clearly visible camera with a warning that the area is under surveillance.
Whenever possible park your vehicle in parking areas with boom gates and spikes and where there are many security and car guards. If you regularly visit the same parking areas, try to build relations with the same car guards and reward them significantly. In parking areas and garages don’t park your vehicle in areas where there are no or only a few vehicles. Park it where there is a concentration of many vehicles. Check if there are surveillance cameras in the parking area or garage. If so, park the vehicle that it is in clear sight of the cameras. Never park your vehicle in an area with insufficient lightning.
After parking the locking of the vehicle become very important especially in the times of very sophisticated jamming and key cloning devices that the criminals use.
a) If you own a vehicle which still open and start with a key, or a button on the key you should lock the vehicle standing next to the vehicle and even if you could hear the central locking system lock, the flashing light on the rearview mirror or dashboard starts to flash and the side mirrors fold in you should still feel if the doors are closed by pulling the handle of the doors.
b) In the more recent models, which does not start with the key, but with a start button, you can’t check if the vehicle is locked by pulling the door handle. If the key is in your hands, in your clothing or even in your handbag or near the vehicle the doors will open when you pull the handles. If you are with a companion/s lock the vehicle and ask him/her/them to walk away with the key. If the flash light on the dashboard or on the rearview mirror starts flashing, side mirrors fold in then you check if the car is really locked by pulling the door handles. If you are alone lock the vehicle standing next to it and make sure you hear the sound of the locks locking, see the small light on the dashboard or rearview mirror flashing and if the vehicle has fold in side mirrors that it is fold in.
Unfortunately, motor vehicle theft is mostly an organised crime where the greedy syndicates will spend lots of money to ensure a steady flow of luxury vehicles to their warehouses. They now have equipment which can “read” the signal that your car keys transmit and then relay it to your vehicle to make the vehicle “think” that you are close by and then unlock and start when the button is pressed. The only countermeasure for this “reading “of the car starter is to obtain Faraday pouches for all the keyless/button start vehicles that you own. Make sure that both the key that you use as well as the spare key are kept in Faraday pouches. If in the residence (house/flat/room) the keys should always be kept in an area where burglars can’t get hold of them (for example by “fishing” through an open window).
People will be surprised to know how many vehicles are stolen with the keys in the ignition or in the vehicle. The driver just stops in front of a convenience store to quickly run in to buy an item and when they turn around to run back to the vehicle, they see how the vehicle is driven away by the thief.
Another good example of this is when people arrive back at home after shopping and they leave the car open and with the keys in the ignition or in in the car while they carry the shopping into the house. Most short-term insurance companies apply a penalty if one’s car is stolen with its own keys and or spare keys.
Smarter parking and locking behaviour can very significantly decrease the theft of motor vehicles.
