Car theft

Cars made in Japan are popular to the people of the world. The Japanese cars have already built its brand worldwide. We can ordinarily see the car brands such as TOYOTA, HONDA, etc on the streets not only in the EU or the US but also in the countries at growing stages like Asian countries. The Japanese cars, are of course, popular domestically. Most of them driving in Japan are made in Japan. But the cars are popular to the people of thieves too.

To take a look at chart, the number of car theft has been increasing in recent years. Especially since 1999, the figures are outstanding. According to the police, the criminal techniques of stealing cars as before were to use them for another crime, or just for fun.

In the recent cases, however, cars made in Japan are stolen for selling domestically or overseas mainly to Asian countries. Car thieves shave off the surface of number plates in order to delete registration numbers and forge official inspection documents. The increasing number of car theft for export is due to a series of deregulation. In addition to the Export Trade Control Law revised in 1995 which simplified the exporting procedures, approvals by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry became unnecessary. As a result it has been much easier to export cars overseas.

To get down to the analysis of criminal techniques in the recent cases, there is a report released by the project team of the Association of the Japanese Insurance Companies. Among 1413 stolen cars on a basis of insurance money payment for the period of one month in March 2000, the prominent areas of car thieves are Osaka, Aichi, Kanagawa, Chiba and Tokyo in frequency order. It seems to me that this is owing to not only the bigger number of registered cars in these areas and higher insurance contracting rates, but also the characteristic of urban areas, that is to say, the people there are indifferent to others. It seems to be easier for thieves to steal cars without fearing that they are reported to police.

Most of the cars were Japanese(91%) and 74 % of them are less than 3 years old. On the whole, high-graded cars and RVs were targeted. Furthermore, in the spots of car thieves 46% of them were in outside contracted parking lots. 17% were in outside parking in private sites. 13% were on streets. The safest spot was indoor parking in one's houses(2%). But we cannot always say that it's the safest. In another word as many as 2% of the cars were stolen at hand. Although we know many of the cases were done at midnight, we sincerely have to think about preventive measures.

The number of Car theftt

Notional Police Agency