June 7, 2016

ABQ metro second in nation in car thefts

Lock your car if you live in the Albuquerque metro area. Really. The four-county metro region had the second highest rate of vehicle thefts in the nation in 2015, according to the National Insurance Crime Bureau. The area had 6,657 thefts last year for a rate of 733.71 per 100,000 people, the NICB said. That […]

Matthew Reichbach

Lock your car if you live in the Albuquerque metro area. Really.

13807426855_147d383e53_k The four-county metro region had the second highest rate of vehicle thefts in the nation in 2015, according to the National Insurance Crime Bureau.

The area had 6,657 thefts last year for a rate of 733.71 per 100,000 people, the NICB said. That was second only to Modesto, Calif., which had 4,072 thefts, for a rate of 756.33 per 100,000 people.

California is car thief heaven. The state had eight metro areas in the top 10 places for the highest rates of vehicle thefts.

The NCIB looked at the theft rates for 380 metro areas, and New Mexico’s three other major metro areas didn’t fare that well.

Las Cruces ranked 127^th with 442 thefts for a rate of 206.26 per 100,000. Farmington placed 132nd with 242 thefts and a rate of 203.81. And Santa Fe ranked 189^th with 238 thefts and a rate of 160.07.

The safest place for a vehicle was the State College, Pennsylvania area, which had 36 thefts for a rate of 22.32 per 100,000 people.

What can you do to keep your vehicle from being stolen? Some of the usual things. Lock the doors, close the windows and remove the keys from the ignition. Alarms, steering column collars and wheel locks also help, the NICB said. So do fuse cut-offs and kill switches.