West Coast cities see spike in car thefts

The West Coast is the worst place to protect your car from thieves, according to the latest per-capita statistics from the National Insurance Crime Bureau.

The NICB, a nonprofit organization that collects data for insurance companies, listed thefts from 381 metro areas in 2012, as defined and gathered by the FBI. Many of the same California metro areas from the previous year again dominated the top 10 spots with the highest reported car thefts per 100,000 people. Modesto, Calif., was number one at 817 thefts per 100,000 people, followed by Fresno (798), Bakersfield (794) and Stockton-Lodi (703).

Washington cities claimed two of the 10 spots, with the Yakima area ranking fifth (674 thefts per 100,000 people) and Spokane-Spokane Valley at number nine (568). According to preliminary statistics from the FBI, West Coast car thefts have shot up 10.6 percent, even though thefts in all other areas of the country fell from 3 to 8 percent.

Due to more thefts in California and Washington, the national theft rate is up 1.3 percent from 2011, when thefts dropped 3.3 percent year-over-year and represented a 35-percent slide since 2007.

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Since the reported metro areas can include entire counties and the rankings are based on population, many cities with higher total numbers of thefts are not shown here (the full state-by-state report is here). For example, the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim area recorded 52,106 thefts -- the highest anywhere in the country, as it is nearly every year -- but the area's dense population meant that just 399 cars were stolen per capita.

Similarly, there were more than 26,000 thefts in the greater Chicago, New York City and San Francisco areas in 2012, but only S.F. (including Oakland and Hayward) made the top 10, at number six. Greater San Jose, Vallejo and Redding, Calif., took the final three spots of the highest per-capita thefts in 2012.

By August 2012, the Honda Accord, Honda Civic and Toyota Camry dominated the NICB's list of the most stolen vehicles in the United States. At that time, the 1994 Accord was car thieves' top darling, followed by the 1998 Honda Civic, the 2006 Ford F-Series pickup, the 1991 Camry and the 2000 Dodge Caravan.

[Source: NICB; FBI]


Source: MSN