Car thefts in the West Midlands have more than doubled in just five years - with motorists' groups warning cuts in police numbers meant criminals could be getting away with it.
A total of 8,705 cars were stolen in the West Midlands police force area in 2017/18. That compares with 4,037 cars stolen in 2013/14. They show the number of cars stolen has been rising, year-on-year, for at least the last five years.
The data also shows the car makes that were most likely to be stolen in the West Midlands.
Of the 8,705 cars taken by thieves in 2017/18, 2,931 were Fords.
A further 681 were Vauxhalls, 673 were Mercedes, 620 were BMWs and 564 were Audis.
Among the stolen cars there were also Volkswagens (439), Hondas (430) and Peugeots (302). Nissans (257) and Renaults (213) complete the top 10.
The numbers don’t mean those makes are necessarily easier to steal or more vulnerable - they might just be more popular in West Midlands. Of the 27 police forces in England and Wales who supplied data, all of them had seen car thefts increase in 2017/18 compared to 2016/17.
In total, across all the forces, there were 57,781 cars stolen in 2017/18, up from 46,704 the year before.
Nationally, Fords were the most likely to be stolen, with 9,921 taken by thieves. Vauxhalls were second (4,954), followed by BMWs (4,685), Mercedes (4,100), Volkswagens (3,069) and Audis (3,069).
Vehicles today are by and large more difficult to steal than ever - unless the thief can access or clone your key or fob.
Police recommend keeping keys safe, out of view when at home, and away from your front door.
They also say when not using an electronic key, it should be kept in a security pouch to prevent it being scanned.
The son of one of my friends works at Jaguar Land Rover and says that JLR are taking the problem seriously and like all manufacturers are seeking a solution.
The problem is confined to cars that use keyless entry - where your key dongle automatically unlocks your car when you approach it.
Until recently thieves could only unlock your car with their scanners if the car and fob were in relatively close proximity - like you car on the drive and your key fob in the house. The latest scumbag car key scanners can pick up your key code when the fob is in your pocket or handbag and store it for later use when you are out and about. Hence, they can now steal the code when you park at a supermarket and wait for you to go into the store before retrieving the code from their scanner and unlocking the car.
Hence the police advice to always store your key fob in a Farady cage security pouch. Unfortunately, this rather diminishes the convenience of keyless entry because you will then have to take the key fob out of the pouch when you get to the car - rather than have it unlock while the fob is in your pocket.
