Some things never change. In the latest listing of top locations for car theft by the National Insurance Crime Bureau, California retains eight out of the top ten slots.
With the exception of two cities in Washington State, California’s San Joaquin Valley and Bay Area are still the hotbed of car theft in the United States they were when I lived there ten years ago. Fresno, Modesto, and Bakersfield top the list. The Bay Area corridor and other central valley locations follow closely.
It’s no coincidence that my own 1994 Mustang Cobra disappeared from my driveway one night in 1998 when I lived in Sacramento. It was found less than two hours later stripped of its engine, transmission, interior, and other resalable Cobra specific parts.
That theft said the California Highway Patrol was the work of one of the Russian car theft gangs as evidenced by the surgical quality of the strip job and the fact it had been misted with motor oil after to prevent fingerprinting.
In other cities gang activity of other kinds can be blamed for both professional and hobbyist car thefts. Most of the cities on the top ten car theft list are the hardest hit by the real estate crash in the past few years, but having grown up in California I can tell you they were car theft havens even in the good times.
California’s proximity to both shipping ports and the southern border make for easy shipment and absconding for stolen vehicles on the professional side. And California’s relative lax law enforcement for non-violent crimes due to their budget fiasco serves little deterrent for youth looking for boost some wheels for a couple hours of fun.
If you have one of the later Mustangs with the Passive Anti Theft System (PATS) that has a chip in your key that must communicate with the computer before your car starts you are in better luck. Even still keep those Mustangs locked up with every device you can afford if you don’t want them to disappear.
The list of the top 10 areas:
1. Fresno, Calif.
2. Modesto, Calif.
3. Bakersfield-Delano, Calif.
4. Spokane, Wash.
5. Vallejo-Fairfield, Calif.
6. Sacramento/Arden-Arcade/Roseville, Calif.
7. Stockton, Calif.
8. Visalia-Porterville, Calif.
9. San Francisco/Oakland/Fremont, Calif.
10. Yakima, Wash.
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