Solution needed for alarming number of car break-ins

[Jijo_Malayil]

Something that has come to the attention of many vehicle owners is the ease with which people are stealing stuff from their cars. Just look at this video (posted below) in which a guy breaks the rear glass of a Hyundai i20 parked in a busy and crowded street. What prompted him to do the act was a bag that was left on the rear seat. A few weeks before, CorsaVeloce had faced a similar incident when his car's rear quarter glass was broken when it was parked inside a manned parking lot in Gurgaon. He had left his bag inside! This happens not just in India, my uncle lost more than a lakh riyal when his windows were broken in front of a shopping mall in Qatar. In his defense, he had even kept his cash inside the glovebox. It seems like the thieves were following his car right from the time he had left the bank after withdrawing the cash. The alarm didn't go off and all this happened in less than 5 minutes, the time he went to withdraw some more cash from the ATM. The point to note here is that leaving anything valuable inside the car, especially exposed, is a big risk nowadays. This is irrespective of however secure the place you park the car is. The normal 'Auto Cop' and other security systems have a level of sensitivity that triggers the alarm. In the moderate mode, it will hardly detect the shiver if someone breaks your car's window using a sharp object. To my knowledge, in the extremely sensitive mode, it triggers the alarm with the slightest of vibrations. A balance is to be found to deter these thieves. But all of this applies only if somebody is near the car to monitor these alarms going off. In my experience, be it a huge parking lot or in a crowded street, nobody is bothered by these alarms. What else can be done to avoid incidents like these? Please comment on.

[Jijo_Malayil]

Check out this video, a guy easily breaks into this car parked in this crowded street. [facebook_video]https://www.facebook.com/logical.indian/videos/567264933403230[/facebook_video]

[Arjun]

JijoMalayil These incidents are quite common now days. The thieves have found the capabilities of the car alarms and managed to work around it. Some other common scams are during traffic signals, one person distracts you while trying to sell something when another person snatches anything on the passenger seat and runs away. Its a common scam for mobile phones and wallets which are kept near the dashboard. This happens only while driving with windows open. Even though I drive with the AC most of the time, when I am not, I make sure that all windows are closed when I am stopping at a signal. In Bangalore, we have also heard of incidents of a person on a bike pulling up parallel to you at a signal and pointing a gun to extort money. As for the bag getting stolen issue, I have made it a habit to place the bag only in the boot. This doesn't help if the theif is following you like in your uncle's case. One more incident I hears about in Delhi happened to my friend's father. He had got out of some government office and placed his briefcase on the passenger seat. All doors and windows were locked as a habit. As he was pulling out toward the gate, one person told him that his tire is flat and walked by. When he got down and checked he found that all tires were okay. Then when he started the car, he got the door open warning. When he checked he found that some one had opened the passenger door and taken away the briefcase. When he had opened the door to check the tyres the all the doors had unlocked giving access to the passeger door. In such cases you should always make sure that you lock the car again as soon as you get out.