Put the brakes on car theft
Ontario led Canada for vehicles stolen in 2020; here’s how to keep yours safe
Two Toronto car thefts, two different endings, one impact: a heightened awareness of taking safety precautions.
It’s a valuable lesson for Ontario residents to learn, given that the province ranked first in Canada in 2020 for cars stolen, with almost 24,000 taken, according to hellosafe.ca.
Anna Redish was “baffled” when she left her Runnymede home more than 10 years ago to jump into her vehicle for some morning grocery shopping. She and her husband regularly parked their Chevy Lumina minivan on the street, but when she looked up and down the block, she didn’t see it.
“I walked up and down the street, thinking maybe my husband had parked it further away, but I couldn’t find it,” Redish said. “I asked my neighbour to come out and take a look, just to be sure I wasn’t missing something, but it was gone.”
Tom Ingram felt “violated” after his Toyota Highlander was taken from his north Etobicoke driveway in the middle of the night in December 2019.
“It bothered me,” he said. “It was parked about four metres from where I was sleeping and the window was cracked, but they still managed to do what they needed to do.
“I looked out the window and, when I didn’t see the car, I had a funny feeling. It was a Thursday, the day my wife does the shopping, but when I heard her moving around downstairs, I knew the car was gone.”
Both Redish and Ingram reported the thefts to their insurance companies and to the police, but only Redish’s story had a fairy-tale ending. The police phoned her three days later to report that her minivan had been found abandoned, its battery dead.
She retrieved it and found no damage, just dirt. Ingram was reimbursed by his insurance company and purchased another vehicle.
Although video footage from a neighbour’s camera captured the middle-ofthe night theft of Ingram’s SUV, police advised him that the vehicle was probably long gone, on its way to a port for shipment overseas and resale.
“Trendy vehicles and high-class cars are easier for thieves to resell on the black market,” said Alexandre Desoutter, communications and public relations officer for HelloSafe, an insurance comparator. “However, vehicles are also stolen for parts, for a getaway or for use in committing other crimes. Most of the time the owners never get them back.”
The most common vehicles stolen in Ontario in 2020, according to Insurance Bureau of Canada statistics, were the 2017 Lexus RX350/RX450h fourdoor, all-wheel drive; the 2018 Lexus RX350/RX350L/RX450h/RX450hL four-door, all-wheel drive; and the 2017 Honda CR-V four-door, all-wheel drive.
In Toronto, auto theft has been on the rise. Toronto Police Service data indicates that thefts in the city have increased from 3,208 in 2015 to 5,186 in 2019.
The areas of the city most heavily targeted are to the north and west (Divisions 22, 23, 31 and 32) bounded by Bayview Avenue to the east, Steeles Avenue to the north, Eglinton and Lawrence Avenues to the south and Hwy. 427 to the west, as well as the part of Scarborough patrolled by Division 42, bounded by Steeles Avenue to the north and Hwy. 401 to the south, the city limits to the east and Victoria Park Avenue to the west.
“Sometimes, auto theft is just a crime of opportunity and other times, it’s strategic,” said Elliott Silverstein, director of government relations and insurance with CAA South Central Ontario. “You can just be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
“Call the police and your insurance company right away so you can get the assistance you need. Afterward, the important thing is to take the necessary precautions, and many of these are behavioural. Condition yourself to lock your car and make sure everything is stowed away, for instance. You want to reduce your vehicle’s attractiveness to thieves.”
Silverstein also suggests asking your insurer if they provide electronic versions of the insurance certificate so there is no need to keep it in your car. The province made this legal in 2019. Unlike the paper copy, the CAA electronic certificate doesn’t give the owner’s home address, something that often concerns victims of car theft who store the paper version in the glove compartment of the car.
Both Redish and Ingram say that they have changed their behaviours as a result of having their vehicles stolen.
“We make sure our car is always locked and we don’t leave our belongings in the car,” Redish said. “We worry about someone going through our things.”
Ingram makes a point of keeping his key fob in a metal container that a scanning device can’t penetrate. He has also cleared out his garage so he can park the car there, making it less accessible and visible.
However, he still believes the onus should be on manufacturers to make vehicles more theft proof.
“As it stands, the manufacturer gets to sell another vehicle (to replace the stolen one), which is not an incentive for them to make the vehicles more difficult to steal,” Ingram said.