Brisbane couple install bollards in front of garage to prevent car theft

A Brisbane father and supercar owner who says juvenile car thieves are not being deterred by the law has taken matters into his own hands.

A Brisbane father and supercar collector has installed steel bollards in front of his home garage to lock out child car thieves, whom he says are not being adequately deterred by the law.

Alborz Fallah said a break-in in December last year triggered him to install the equipment in front of his home in Brisbane’s inner north.

Four young boys allegedly broke into Mr Fallah’s home, stole keys for several of his cars and his family car.

“I got them all on video, there was four of them and they look like they were 12 years old,” he said.

Alborz Fallah's garage in Brisbane's inner north has installed three steel bollards to protect his collection of cars. Picture, John Gass

The youths removed in-built tracking devices and snapped the dashcam before stealing his car.

“They’d done it before … they’re not dumb kids here,” Mr Fallah said.

“These days the kids that steal the cars are pretty smart, they disabled all of the tracking on the car that they stole, and they’ve got the range extenders for the car keys.”

Mr Fallah said he’d never considered bollards before, but felt the rate of youth crime was getting out of control in the area.

“I built that house vowing to not put bollards in, because it’s supposed to be a really safe neighbourhood, it’s inner-city Brisbane,” he said.

“The bollards are such a pain and it almost ruins the joy of owning really decent cars, because every time you wanna come in, you’ve got to manually remove them.

Alborz Fallah's with his car collection, now protected by steel bollards. Picture: John Gass

“It just reminds me of how annoying it is … that we’ve almost failed to have basic law enforced because this is what you have to do, take it into your own hands with additional security you really shouldn’t have to have.”

The three bollards cost about $5000 to install.

“The cost isn’t the issue, I’m not crying poor on the bollards, it’s the fact that in a very decent suburb of Brisbane you have to go to the extent of putting in bollards just because we don’t believe the police are capable of keeping the neighbourhood secure,” he said.

“I never thought that I would think like that, ever.

“I’ve been living here in Brisbane for 30 years.

“We live in Australia, we live in Brisbane for f--k’s sake, not in the Bronx in New York, it shouldn’t be like this.

“A friend of mine on the Gold Coast, their suburb has hired private security.

“I’m starting to think we should do the same for our suburb.”