Most Car Break-Ins Don’t Happen Where You Think

Vivint recently published a study on the subject of car theft and break-ins, and it turned up some surprising facts and figures. For instance, did you know that Hyundai is one of the most stolen brands in the US? Yep, 48,445 Elantras and 42,813 Sonatas were stolen in 2023, and that’s not counting break-ins and other forms of vandalism. And you’ll never guess which state has seen the biggest increase in car thefts since 2022: Maryland.

Some of the study’s findings are more like “interesting factoids,” while others can actually be put to use in keeping your car, and everything in it, safe and secure. Here’s what you need to know.

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Residential Streets Are The Most Dangerous Place To Park Your Car

If you were to guess the most dangerous spot to park your car, you might suppose that your Toyota Camry or Ford Escape is at the most risk out in the city. Public parking lots, your spot at work, outside of movie theaters (since thieves know you’ll be busy for a couple hours). But when you think about it, that doesn’t really check out, does it? Out in public, you’re more likely to get caught smashing someone’s window, there are eyes everywhere, not to mention security guards and cops.

According to the study from Vivint, 30% of all break-ins occur on residential streets, and 28% occur in residential driveways. That’s more than half of all break-ins occurring in suburbs and residential districts, the exact places where you might expect your car to be safer.

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Altogether, here’s where break-ins are most likely to occur:

• Residential streets – 30%
• Residential driveways – 28%
• Apartment complex parking lots – 18%
• Public streets – 12%
• Commercial parking lots – 7%
• Public parking garages – 7%

It’s interesting to find that public parking garages are exactly as safe, or unsafe, as commercial parking lots. This may be down to an even tradeoff between security and the “broad daylight” factor. If you’re a crook, you might have a harder time getting into a parking garage than smash-and-grabbing someone’s BMW in a public parking lot, but you’ll have more privacy to do your sinful business inside the confines of the garage, at least until someone checks the security footage.

Your Car’s Make And Model May Correlate With Crime (But The Connection Can Be Hard To See)

Vivint’s data shows that Toyotas and Hondas are perceived as being the safest autos on the road when it comes to break-ins, while luxury brands like Lexus, BMW, and Mercedes-Benz are perceived as being less safe. This checks out, because the charge is the same no matter what car you break into, but a luxury model is more likely to hold some valuable goodies in the back seat come holiday shopping time.

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A weird detail regarding the most commonly stolen vehicles in 2023: 15,852 Ford F-150s were stolen, around half as many units as the Kia Optima, at 30,204 car thefts. This suggests that the numbers don’t necessarily track with which cars are most common or which cars sell the most units each year. In 2020, Kia sold 48,484 Optimas. That same year, Ford sold 787,422 F-Series pickups, more than ten times as many models as the Kia Optima. And yet, by 2023, Optimas were being stolen at twice the pace of the F-150.

An easy hypothesis to make: the Optima has been discontinued, so any Optima on the road likely has outdated security software. But there are way more outdated F-150s on the road than there are Kia Optimas. A more likely explanation for the spike in Kia and Hyundai thefts would be a security software bug that affected these brands a couple years back. But this is likely only one of many factors at play, seeing as Kia and Hyundai thefts persisted after these bugs were patched.

Playing The Odds

Remember that movie The Transporter, where the bad guys blow up Jason Statham’s E38 BMW 735i, so he goes back to their hideout, beats everybody up and takes a Mercedes-Benz S-Class to make up for the loss? That whole franchise has its share of awesome car chases, but there aren’t many people who would be able to do that in real life, so prevention is going to be your best strategy for handling car thefts and break-ins.

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The study lists some tactics for preventing break-ins. Among the most effective:

• Always park in public. Whether it’s a garage or a public parking lot, you’re safer when you’re visible.
• If you have a garage, use it. More than half of all break-ins occur on residential streets and in driveways, so if you’ve been meaning to clean your garage out, stop putting it off.
• Lock your car, even when you’re at home. Criminals are opportunists at heart, and they’ll gladly take a smaller prize from an unlocked car than risk drawing attention by smashing someone’s window for a more valuable reward.
• Don’t leave valuables in your car. If you absolutely have to, at least tuck them under the seat or put them in the trunk or something.
• Don’t park in high-crime areas. That’s sometimes easier said than done, but, y’know, if it can be helped.

It’s all pretty common-sense stuff, but you’d be surprised how often these tips can slip someone’s mind.

What Should You Do After A Break-In?

.Here are some eye-opening numbers from the study:

• 30% of people who experienced a break-in reported a minimum loss of $1,000 in stolen or damaged property.
• 46% of drivers who experienced a car break-in chose not to report the crime to their insurance provider in order to avoid higher premiums.
• 17% of drivers say that their choice of car is influenced by the risk of break-ins and theft. Basically, you go with the 2020 Toyota instead of the 2024 Lexus simply because the Lexus is advertising your good fortune to every crook on the street.

In most parts of the country, you can file an insurance claim without filing a police report, and vice versa. This means that, if you really want your PlayStation 5 back, but you really don’t want your insurer to find out it was stolen, you can contact the police without worrying about it getting back to your agent.

Your Auto Insurer Only Covers Damages To The Car

Depending on how your insurance plans are structured, your personal possessions are typically covered under your homeowner or renter policy, not your auto insurance. This means that you can cover what was taken in a theft without contacting your auto insurer, but you’ll still be out the cost of a broken window, and you’ll have to pay higher insurance premiums with your home insurer.

This is what sucks about crime. You wind up losing something in the deal no matter how you slice it.

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You can choose to deal with your insurance situation however you like, but it’s pretty much always a good idea to contact the police, and, if you have dash-cam footage or a home security camera that may have captured the criminals in the act, you can provide that to help with the investigation.

Sources: Vivint.