Photo: Cheap Car Insurance
Alright, so that number in the title is pretty scary. In the time you need to read this piece, approximately two cars would have been stolen somewhere in the United States of America.
If you're a fast reader, then maybe you could manage to save one of them, but the statistics are still worrying. The good news, though, is that there are a lot of cars in the USA, so the probability for yours to get nicked is still rather low. But that doesn't mean that you shouldn't pay attention to this little study put together by Cheap Car Insurance with data provided by the FBI and the National Insurance Crime Bureau.
The second good news is that the overall number of grand theft autos is on a steady decline, so if you were reading this four years ago, not only would you have been a time traveler, but the number of cars stolen while you did it would have probably risen to three. But let's cut the chit-chat: you want to know just how likely is your car to get stolen?
Well, it turns out the most GTA-happy state isn't actually a state at all: it's the District of Columbia. There are 17.5 car thefts for every 1,000 registered vehicles, a number that's way over the national average. At the other end is Vermont with just one vehicle in one thousand switching owners without the previous one's blessing.
As far as cities go, you're better off staying away from Modesto, California, and Albuquerque, New Mexico, where there are 756 vehicles stolen for every 100,000 residents, and 734 respectively. Other nefarious places for car ownership include Bakersfield (CA), San Francisco (CA), Stockton-Lodi (CA) - you get the point: it may be sunny in California, but it's also quite dangerous for your car.
Especially if it's a Honda. The two most stolen cars in the USA are both made by the Japanese manufacturer: the first is the Accord with 52,244 cases, followed shortly by the Civic with 49,430. Next are two pickup trucks, one from Ford and one from Chevrolet, but they are trailing by more than 20,000 units.
It turns out American thieves aren't very picky when it comes to the model year of the stolen car. Instead of going for the newer, more valuable vehicles, the most cars reported stolen were of 1998 model year (17.7 percent) followed by 1996 with 15 percent.
The second good news is that the overall number of grand theft autos is on a steady decline, so if you were reading this four years ago, not only would you have been a time traveler, but the number of cars stolen while you did it would have probably risen to three. But let's cut the chit-chat: you want to know just how likely is your car to get stolen?
Well, it turns out the most GTA-happy state isn't actually a state at all: it's the District of Columbia. There are 17.5 car thefts for every 1,000 registered vehicles, a number that's way over the national average. At the other end is Vermont with just one vehicle in one thousand switching owners without the previous one's blessing.
As far as cities go, you're better off staying away from Modesto, California, and Albuquerque, New Mexico, where there are 756 vehicles stolen for every 100,000 residents, and 734 respectively. Other nefarious places for car ownership include Bakersfield (CA), San Francisco (CA), Stockton-Lodi (CA) - you get the point: it may be sunny in California, but it's also quite dangerous for your car.
Especially if it's a Honda. The two most stolen cars in the USA are both made by the Japanese manufacturer: the first is the Accord with 52,244 cases, followed shortly by the Civic with 49,430. Next are two pickup trucks, one from Ford and one from Chevrolet, but they are trailing by more than 20,000 units.
It turns out American thieves aren't very picky when it comes to the model year of the stolen car. Instead of going for the newer, more valuable vehicles, the most cars reported stolen were of 1998 model year (17.7 percent) followed by 1996 with 15 percent.
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