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DPP legislator warns of prevalence of car theft

With vehicle theft rampant, DPP Legislator Tsai Chi-fang (蔡啟芳) yesterday held a public hearing at the Legislative Yuan to offer the public advice on how to prevent their vehicles from being stolen.

Tsai's office released statistics from a local insurance company stating that 51,675 cars were reported stolen last year, or about one car every 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, the National Police Administration's Criminal Investigation Bureau said police have arrested more car thieves this year.

"I would like to provide some interesting statistics here," said Hsu Juei-shan (許瑞山), the head of the bureau's Investigation Division.

"Last year, the percentage of motorcycle and scooter theft cases solved by police was 50.63 percent and this year the figure is 56.96 percent. For cars it was 65.57 percent last year and 70.96 percent this year. The police are making progress," Hsu said.

Panelists at the hearing agreed to help educate the public on how to avoid becoming a target of thieves and to encourage the police to keep up their anti-theft work.

According to Hsieh Wen-yuan (謝文苑), an instructor at the Central Police University with 17-years experience in the field, it is not difficult for people to keep their vehicles from being stolen.

"First of all, ask yourself why a thief would be interested in your car. Usually their motivations are obvious. All you need to do is reduce their motivations and naturally, your car will be safe," Hsieh said.

The police instructor said that more and more dealerships offer a service to imprint the vehicle identification number on the car's major parts. This service usually comes with full insurance coverage. The service is also provided by motorcycle and scooter dealerships.

"There are three kinds of vehicles which most thieves avoid -- those with too many complicated locks, those whose identification number has been imprinted on parts and those which are quite unique," he said.

"Think about it, most thieves want to make money from the stolen vehicles. When the chances for them to make money are reduced, will they still be interested? I guess not."

Tseng Ping-yi (曾平毅), a professor at the police university, urged the police to "study the criminals" so officers know better how to deal with them.

"Other than educating the public, we should also educate our future police officers about the thieves' philosophy. I don't think it will be too difficult for officers to find these car or motorcycle thieves if police know more about these criminals," he said.
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