When recently dealing with the thorny issue of German cars being stolen and taken over the border to Poland, the Polish Ambassador said “perhaps it is too easy to steal cars in Germany”. Of course as he knows only too well that Garman cars, or for that matter most new cars, are far from easy to steal. There are some specialists in electronics who are developing more sophisticated ways of stealing cars but the average car thief has to resort to more desperate methods nowadays.

Of our contract hire clients who have had their cars stolen in recent years, none have come back to where they parked their cars and found them gone; the days of hot wiring are over. Even putting a car on a low loader in order to steal it is not without its risks for the car thief; most expensive cars have Tracker fitted and as soon as the car is moved in this manner the owner is alerted. What a car thief really wants is the keys.

A number of our leasing clients have been the victim of carjacking, although this is to some extent avoidable if you keep your wits about you; if a car bumps into your car, enough for you to feel it but not enough to damage the car, be warned that this is a common method used by those who carry out carjacking. They want you to get out of the car to inspect the damage, at which time they will overpower you and take the car.

One of our Jaguar leasing clients was jostled whilst waiting to pay for his petrol, only to come out to find his car had been taken. In the majority of the cases where our clients have had their cars stolen, their homes have been broken into at night and the keys stolen. Most keys are left near the front door, so the thiefs are quickly in and out with little chance of being disturbed. It is debateable as to whether it a good idea to put the keys in a safer place; you perhaps don’t want them coming up to the bedroom to look for the keys.