Qld’s worst areas for car theft, most stolen brands
Stolen car offences have almost doubled since 2017 with Queensland police slapping offenders with 55 unlawful use charges a day, as three popular Toyota models are revealed as the most targeted vehicles.
The damning police statistics also reveal 89 stealing from a vehicle or entering with intent offences are being recorded each day across Queensland, as a leading criminologist believes “attacks” relating to stolen cars are becoming more “violent”.
Statistics from Queensland Police showed 20,190 unlawful use of a motor vehicle offences were recorded in 2023 compared to 19,260 in 2022. The number has almost doubled since 2017 where it was 12,110.
The number of stealing from a vehicle or entering with intent was even higher with 32,720 in 2023 – a rate of 89 charges per day.
Data from RACQ shows they received 1,595 claims for car theft in 2023 with the most common cars the Toyota Land Cruiser, Toyota HiLux and Toyota Corolla.
The regions with the highest claims were Townsville, Cairns, Brisbane, Logan, Brisbane
City and Gold Coast.
An RACQ spokeswoman said according to claims data they had seen an increase in luxury car theft compared to 2022 with Mercedes, BMQ, Audi, Lexus and Land Rover among the car brands.
Suncorp Group and RACQ both recorded Toyota, Holden, Ford and Mazda as the most stolen car brands.
Suncorp said the most common models to steal was the Toyota LandCruiser and Holden Commodores. Criminologist Terry Goldsworthy said the numbers of unlawful use of a motor vehicle offences had been going up for some time.
“Queensland has been problematic in terms of unlawful use of a motor vehicle now for some years now, they are probably the worst state in Australia for that type of crime,” he said. “If you can get on top of the youth crime problem, in particular the serious repeat offenders you probably will make a substantial dent in the range of stolen vehicles ...”
In January, Queensland Police launched a stolen car registry – giving access to information about active stolen vehicles across the state – which as of March 11, had 500 outstanding cars.