Rare phenomenon that’s striking Australians once again

It’s something most Australians thought would never happen to them, however a massive shift is shaping a new phenomenon.

Is your car still where you left it? For the last decade or so we have been able to be pretty confident about that. Car theft got rare. But just recently, the trend has turned.

The courts of Australia are more and more full of car thieves, as stealing cars becomes a phenomenon once again.

The next chart shows what I mean: the number of people in court for motor vehicle theft is at its highest level since the statistics began in 2010-11.

Joy-riders

We need to put that recent rise in context though. The bad old days were even worse.

I’ll never forget the time my housemate got his car stolen. I woke up to the sound of him banging on my bedroom door. “Did you move my car?”. I hadn’t. A short while later he got out of denial and accepted it was stolen. He rang the cops and rode his bike to work. That afternoon they found the car burned out in a field.

This was in about 2005, and at the time his car was super old. 1980s cars were easy to hot-wire if you knew how. But not all thieves did know how.

Around 2006 I woke up to find my own first car had been broken into; someone had ripped the dashboard off and pulled out all the wires. They hadn’t managed to get it going and an auto-electrician repaired it for me (the central locking never worked again, but then not many people expected a 1989 Hyundai Excel to have central locking anyway).

Back around 2000 cars were going missing all the time, then car theft plunged, caused by new technology, including engine immobilisers and the end of hot-wiring. But as of 2023, the latest year for which we have data, it was showing signs of rising. I suspect the 2024 data will show even more thefts.

Cars nicked per year. Picture: Supplied

When cars go missing these days, it’s usually because the thief took the keys. They break into your house, grab the key off the kitchen bench. Usually next to the fruit bowl and the tissue box? They drive off like they own it. About half the time, cars are stolen from homes, not streets.

Car theft is on the rise. Picture: iStock

People are looking for solutions. And a simplest one is this. The old club lock on the steering wheel. It’s the one thing Aussies feel we need, because it is going to stop the thief, even ones who have the car keys in their hand.

The price of cars in China

There’s also an economic explanation for car theft. In the era where cars were getting stolen less, they also got cheaper in relative terms. Makes sense, right? People want to steal things that are expensive.

Chinese made cars, including Volvo and other brands, are seen at the port in Nanjing. Picture: AFP

Most kids grew up in a house with a car these days. They didn’t always need to steal one to have access to one. Same way flat screen TVs don’t get stolen so much any more. Flat screen TVs are falling in price and got way bigger. And the same idea applies to cars – while they have not halved in price like TVs, they have certainly risen less than inflation and improved a lot.

The following chart shows the official inflation figures for cars. It reveals your money goes further these days when buying a car.

Although that’s quality-adjusted for the fact cars are now safer, faster, use less fuel and come with longer warranties, so it doesn’t map directly onto the drive-away price.

Still the point is valid: when cars were getting better and better value they got stolen less, now the reverse is true and they are getting stolen more.

Steering wheel locks used to be everywhere.

Sometimes old ideas come into fashion again, and maybe this generation of kids will grow up like I did, seeing steering wheel locks everywhere. Just don’t leave the key for it in the same place as your car key!

Originally published as Rare phenomenon that’s striking Australians once again