"On average, Philadelphia police are called to about 36 stolen vehicles every day, which is almost twice as many from about four years ago."

"Data uncovered by CBS Philadelphia shows more than 12,700 stolen vehicles were reported to police in Philadelphia so far this year. Those numbers are nearly twice as many stolen vehicles during the same time period in 2019."

I’m curious how much of this is due to the Kia boyz stuff. Don’t think people/teens knew how easy they were to hot wire in 2019

i assumed nothing after the mid 00’s was easy to steal. everything’s so wired & computerized now, i have trouble jumping my SO’s 2013 Bimmer bc the battery’s hidden under a wafflemaker

thank goodness PPD is out there! but it’s a shame they’re too busy stealing from corner stores & brutalizing minorities

[removed]

I wonder if courtesy tows reported as stolen are statistically significant.

>A CBS Philadelphia analysis of the most stolen vehicles by make in Philadelphia in 2022 shows Kia ranks fifth, followed by Hyundai, Honda and Ford. Chevrolet is the most stolen vehicle in the city by make.

Chevy is interesting, would love to see what the actual common model/year stolen.

I wonder if it’s an Express van.

Statistically, this is borderline /r/peopleliveincities. GM's the top automaker by sales in the United States, Ford's third, Hyundai/Kia combined are fifth and Honda's sixth.

Guess thieves are smart enough to know that FCA builds garbage any more, but it's interesting that No. 2 Toyota isn't in the tops for thefts (although maybe that's just because ripping catalytic converters off Priuses is a bigger thing).

Everything I drove in the 00’s had RFID keys which made it extremely difficult to get running without an original key. It seems like carmakers have skimped since then.

Apparently Nissan and Kias from like 2015-2020 all you need is a usb plug and a screw driver

They would count the same in 2019 as in 2022.

Not Nissan just Hyundai which is Kia’s parent company

PSA: if you have stuff in your car and it's stolen, the car itself is covered through your Comprehensive coverage on the auto policy, but the contents are covered through your residential (homeowner's or renter's policy). Make sure you have both.

All things being equal, yes. But if there were substantially more projects in 2022, or the practice was more widely employed.

I'm just asking the question because the article specifies reported thefts. Which led to wonder about gaps between reported and actual.

[deleted]

Had mine stolen in October. The police didn't even come to file a report. I sat outside of my house for 2 hours and literally jumped in front of a cop car for them to stop so I could get a report filed for my insurance.

Fun insurance fact: if you are involved in a bike accident it is also covered by your residential insurance policy. And if you are riding your bike and get hit by a car your PIP insurance on your auto policy will cover medical expenses up to your PIP limit ($5k by default and cheap to increase).

You don't get towed for street sweeping, you get a $30 ticket, and the street sweeping program ended in Nov and won't start again until next summer.

Highly doubt that there was that much of a measurable increase in street works requiring courtesy tows.

Good to know.

>street sweeping

What is this "street sweeping" you guys keep talking about?

[deleted]

Sucks for that Temple student though can't say I'm surprised.

36 cars stolen a day is wild though. This really just highlights the lack of any plate reader technology in the city to go after these. In the future with built-in GPS tracking and remote shutdown commands being integrated in, I can't imagine this will be as much of an issue.

amazing

> FCA

But just think of the security provided by a monthly subscription of just three strips of gold-pressed latinum for the FCA’s official Hoo-mon Car Lock feature!

Where is the "dive into the numbers" offered in the title? What a shitty article.

[removed]

I had a funny dream the other day where I was getting carjacked, but I drive stick, so I had to teach the thieves how to drive it away.

From a past article on Philly car thefts:

“One-third to one-half of thefts are crimes are just too easy, says Captain of Major Crimes Squad, John Ryan.

"It's directly tied to people leaving their cars running, people leaving their key fobs in their car, so people can just drive off," says Captain Ryan.”

Seems to be a common trend in big cities right now, unfortunately. Thefts have nearly doubled in Philly since 2019. In Chicago, thefts are up 96% with more than 18,000 vehicles stolen in 2022 in compared to just over 9,000 in 2021. In NYC they had also nearly doubled compared to 2021 earlier this year, though I can’t find anything more recent.

Sources:

https://abc7chicago.com/amp/chicago-crime-parking-garage-car-thefts/12529948/

https://abc7ny.com/amp/car-thefts-stolen-nyc-crime-new-york-city/11639682/

My Kia survived an attempted theft on Monday. They really messed up the door and frame. Hopefully Rocco’s takes care of it. I’m out $500 deductible.

[removed]

Interestingly, Chicago has has license plate readers since 2006 but they are averaging 50+ thefts a day, having doubled since last year.

They put some signs up in my neighborhood saying they were going to do it, but never did.

My neighbor’s Kia survived an attempt two nights ago, but they destroyed the steering column. His alarm went off, I looked out the window and saw a tinted-out Altima speeding away.

He’s out more than $500

[removed]

Per capita that is still lower than Philly's. I think a comparison of the clearance and recovery rates of thefts in the two cities would be helpful here.

Years ago, me and my wife went to NYC to reclaim a car that a shitty ex refused to turn over (whole other story). About 10 minutes after we got it out of the impound lot, an unmarked cop car pulled her over, and 4 cops came out with guns drawn. Apparently, the information they got from the plate reader was that the car was impounded, and they thought we had somehow stolen it from the station. Scary af, but we explained the situation. The cops called the impound lot and confirmed and told us that the information just hadn't been updated in the system. Imagine if that system was in place in Philly.

This implies we have a police force that would care about such a thing

Yeah a bit, but with their thefts increasing at a much higher rate I’d expect them to surpass us next year. Chicago also had a higher rate of carjackings per-capita last year, but I have no clue about 2022. I’d like to see the data you mentioned as well.

Can't prepack a car the night before in Philly. Especially in the campus areas. People case for that and then hit the cars overnight. Good thing he had a tracker though, just sucks he got hit before holiday break.

[removed]

Just curious: What was the make?

> “One-third to one-half of thefts are crimes are just too easy, says Captain of Major Crimes Squad, John Ryan.

If that's even close to true, it's...oddly reassuring

2016 Kia soul

ach. sorry for your loss

[removed]

A lot of auto theft is crime of opportunity so it could be!

Not that it helps much now, but lowering your Comp deductible to 0 would likely cost next to nothing ($5-10 a month). I'd investigate, especially if you have a Kia in a major population center.

If we had such a system here it would certainly help with impounding all the cars with fake plates rolling around.