At Least 44,000 Cars Were Stolen Last Year Because Doofus Drivers Left the Keys in Them

[Agschmid]

[center][/center]

Bloomberg reports that the number of car thefts in the United States has declined in recent years, perhaps because of security devices such as smart keys. But while keys may be getting smarter, it appears that Americans in general are getting dumber, as evidenced by an increase in the number of vehicles that are being stolen after drivers simply leave their keys inside their cars and walk away:

U.S. car thefts with keys left inside jumped 14 percent from 2012 to 2014, reaching 44,828 last year, according to a study issued Monday by the National Insurance Crime Bureau. The actual number is probably higher because some people don’t admit their carelessness to police or their insurer, the NICB said.

What are you doing, you dummies? Put your keys in your pocket!

Source.

Top 10 stolen vehicles police never find, does your car make the list?

[kentauros]

1. My Civic is too old and non-sexy to be considered

for that list. Fine by me.

Now, if I could just find a way of making people's car doors not open if they intend to slam them into my car...

[Agschmid]

2. Here...

http://www.doorshox.com

[Egnever]

3. That looks like a case of the cure being worse than the disease.

[Agschmid]

4. Yup!

[kentauros]

5. That's pretty cool :)

I was just thinking the other day why the car manufacturers put their "bumpers" so low on car doors. Now someone is helping them visualize it

I doubt I'd get anything like that. The dings are there, and it's not like my car is a F-Type Jaguar or anything...

[AgingAmerican]

6. That's how we used to steal them

As teens, though sometimes we would hot wire them. We also used to find cars at the top of a hill, put them in neutral and just coast to the bottom.

[linuxman]

7. Victim blaming.

Nice.

"Can't ------- and not expect --------"

[pipoman]

8. For the pros

Honda, Toyota, Mazda, and Nissan made it simple for years hiding the key codes on every car. Back in my repo days I could take a Honda with a working key in less than 10 minutes...transponder keys changed that, then we towed the car then went back for the keys...

[FBaggins]

9. At least 44,000 women were assaulted last year because they wore short skirts

You were saying?

[Freddie Stubbs]

10. The short skirt analogy is not very apt

A better analogy would be that they were assaulted because they were too drunk.

[FBaggins]

11. I can live with that

as long as we're pretending that it's anything other than what it is... a criminal decided that what was hers should be his.