Don't tempt fate or thieves!
1 commentIf all your car contains is a dog-eared road atlas and the remains of yesterday’s sandwich, then you could be forgiven for being relaxed about the security of your vehicle. However, cars these days are likely to contain hundreds of pounds worth of gadgets such as Sat Nav systems, CD and DVD players, to say nothing of cash, designer clothes and sunglasses. Surprisingly though, we don’t seem to give much thought to the fact that we could be tempting thieves.
According to research carried out by Zurich, the motor insurance company, British motorists leave £3.9 billion worth of goodies in their cars, with 85% of us leaving belongings worth an average of £145. For 20% of us, the value is over £200 and for 5% it is over £500. That of course is just the motorists who know what their belongings are worth - 40% of us have no idea!
51% of us don’t bother to remove our CD players when we leave the car, making stereo systems the top of the thief’s shopping list. If they fancy some CDs to play in their newly acquired system, then that’s not usually a problem either, with 44% of us leaving generous collections of CDs too. When you stop and consider how much each CD costs, it is not hard to see how the figures start to add up.
An obliging 6% of us leave our house keys in the car, making it possible for a resourceful thief to break into our house whilst he’s at it. For the sporty thief, golf clubs are a favourite with 20% of us leaving them in the car boot. If, at the end of the day, none of your possessions take the thief’s fancy, then with 29% of us leaving cash in the car, he can always go shopping more conventionally.
Men, it seems are worse offenders than women, leaving on average an extra £34 worth of goods, and as far as age profile is concerned, the worst group is the 18 to 24-year-olds. Why, you may wonder, do we make life so easy for thieves? Apathy seems to be at the root of the problem, with 27% of us admitting that it is easier to leave our belongings in the car rather than take them out and put them back in again. 10% of us put our hands up to being plain lazy, whilst 8% cite forgetfulness as the reason for our lax attitudes.
Whatever the reason, we may well find that our insurers are less than forgiving, with many policies requiring that we take due care of our belongings in order to be covered for theft. Moreover, it is not only the value of our property that we could find ourselves claiming for, but also damage done to our car. Thieves are not fussy about how much damage they cause and windows are frequently smashed or doors forced open.
If you really have no alternative to leaving valuables in the car, make sure you lock all doors, and close windows and sun roofs. Finally, if you have a car alarm make sure you use it – 5% of us with alarm systems don’t even bother using them!
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