Tip to avoid motorcycle and car theft

Here’s a tip, unfortunately gained from first-hand experience, on how to avoid one of the most common way thieves steal cars and motorcycles.

Motorcycle theft is running rampant with an increase of 10.5% to 9672 last year which is a 19.7% leap from the 8078 stolen five years ago.

The National Motor Vehicle Theft reduction Council says one of the most common ways vehicles are stolen is through house break-ins specifically to grab vehicle keys.

They often occur at houses where the garage is part of the house and connected by an internal door.

Thieves push the top of the electronic garage door, poke a wire through and pull the release cord to open the garage door.

Then they grab the keys – often from your kitchen bench – and drive or ride off.

Unfortunately, over the weekend we had two locked cars stolen this way from our locked garage, despite reporting this exact scenario on our website in 2o15!

Fortunately they were probably kids seeking a joy ride and didn’t take the two Ducatis that were also in the garage because they couldn’t ride.

Police explained how they force entry and suggested we tie up the quick-release cord.

They also gave us a tip to install a dead lock on the door between the garage and house.

Police say thieves also use universal remotes to see if they open remote garage doors which have a finite number of codes.

So if you are going away for a while, turn off the power to your electronic garage door.

They also suggest not leaving your keys in an obvious place.

How to secure your bike

Click here to find out other measures you can take to prevent your bike from ending up in these statistics.

• When riding home, make sure you are not being followed.
• Stay alert for suspicious vans or trucks driving around late at night. These are used to transport stolen motorcycles.
• Lock the steering if it has a steering lock.
• Put a cover over your bike. It might slow down thieves and prevent theft of accessories. But make sure it isn’t a flashy lone with the brand name of the bike on it. That only entices thieves.
• When riding in a group, park your bikes together.
• Consider marking your bike in a unique way that could aid in recovery and therefore dissuade thieves.
• At hotels or public parking spaces, try to park in view of parking lot security cameras and lights.
• Install a motorcycle alarm and/or a hidden kill switch.
• Buy a GPS tracking system that can track and relay your bike’s speed, location and direction.

We would also like to point out how quickly police responded to our call. Within two hours local police arrived and forensics arrived another two hours later. Meanwhile, we received a call from yet another police station to say they had recovered baby seats from one of the vehicles.