City of London worst for car thefts
New research conducted by IntelligentCarLeasing.com reveals the areas in the UK which have the highest and lowest rates of car theft per head. A total of 42 police forces across England and Wales participated in the study which was conducted via freedom of information requests.
Each force told the leasing specialists how many cars had been reported stolen each year between 2003 and 2013. When this data is crossed with local population sizes, a revealing comparable set of results is generated, which ICL has used to draw many interesting comparisons between areas across the country.
An interesting trend identified from this research is that the number of cars reported as being stolen across the UK in the past 10 years has been steadily declining each and every year.
Specifically between 2012 and 2013 the number of reported thefts plummeted which is a very promising sign for British motorists, insurers and the police.
The highest/lowest 5 areas for car thefts per head can be seen below:
Highest
1. City of London
2. Greater Manchester
3. Metropolitan (London)
4. Thames Valley
5. Warwickshire
Lowest
1. Devon and Cornwall
2. North Yorkshire
3. Hampshire
4. Hertfordshire
5. Norfolk
Intelligent Car Leasing consulted experts for advice on why this trend might be occurring. The following insights were given: Technology to verify key authenticity in ignition system is now widespread, there’s less profit in selling used parts than there used to be and the fact that it’s harder to sell on stolen vehicles due to advances in VIN records.
North Versus South of England
One of the most interesting facts to look at with this data set is how the results measure up between the north and south of England.
There has long been a divide both socially and economically between these regions and so it is interesting to see which has proportionately more car thefts. When filtering down the data for police forces in the north/south of the country it is revealed that the south has 4.89% more car thefts per head.
This is largely bolstered by a disproportionately large number of car thefts in the City of London, if this were to be taken away the north would have a much higher theft rate. pg
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