(This column was published in the North Shore News on Sept. 22, 2004)
Car thieves have no worries
By Leo Knight
A friend of mine got an all-too-typical call last week.
It was the Vancouver police calling.
All manner of things then went through his mind, none of them good.
"Do you own a red Fiero?" the officer asked.
Since my friend did, he responded in the affirmative and waited for the other shoe to drop.
The officer wanted to know whether my friend knew where his vehicle was.
Needless to say, my friend thought he knew where it was. After all, he left it in the driveway of his Lower Lonsdale home the night before. But these days it seems the chances of finding your car where you left it the night before are getting more remote.
Last year more than 171,000 cars were stolen in Canada. And 25,000 of them were taken here in British Columbia. This year, according to information released by ICBC, that number will grow again. If the current trend continues, that number could be close to 28,000 by the time you are singing Auld Lang Syne.
The problem has been getting steadily worse since about the mid-1990s when the numbers in the Vancouver area shot up dramatically.
In the City of Vancouver alone, the numbers doubled in one year.
The cost is huge.
Nationally, auto theft costs insurers $1 billion every year and rising.
And you know who pays that tab.
According to the Ontario Crime Control Commission in a 2000 study, auto theft adds $48 to each policy in Ontario. And that was then.
But the cost is so much more than just the repair or replacement cost borne by the insurance carriers.
How many lives are lost in high-speed chases or simply stupid driving on the part of the so-called joyriders?
According to a 2001 study by the Insurance Bureau of Canada, in Ontario there were 23 deaths the previous year directly related to auto thefts.
The victims are the young thieves themselves, innocent pedestrians, other drivers and police officers engaged in trying to stop the insanity.
There is certainly an organized crime connection to the rise in auto theft numbers. But vehicles stolen by Asian organized criminals or run-through bikers' chop shops are rarely recovered.
In British Columbia, auto theft recovery rates are more than 80 percent which would indicate the primary cause of the problem is teenage joyriders, usually young males who steal for the sake of stealing or to be used in the commission of other crimes.
They are typically habitual offenders.
According to the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, almost half of all people convicted of auto theft are between the ages of 12 and 17. Kids. And 90 per cent of them will or have re-offended.
And why is that?
Simply put, because nothing ever happens to them.
Let's look at a case from North Vancouver.
A couple of weeks ago a chronic offender, a 15-year- old boy, appeared before North Vancouver provincial court Judge Judith Gedye.
In one day he was linked to five stolen cars and in several of those events, police chased him trying to end the crime spree. When he was finally caught, numerous charges were laid.
Now, I should add that he was on probation at the time as well as released into the community with conditions in connection with a bail hearing on outstanding charges.
Needless to say, he was released after a guilty plea by Gedye on similar conditions to those that didn't work before.
Twenty-four hours later, he was back in police custody.
Oddly enough, he didn't think much of the imposed conditions this time either.
The law protects him from me telling you who he is or where he lives.
The judge naively believes him when he says he won't be bad again and lets him go.
And he can't even keep his lying, stealing self out of jail for 24 hours.
My friend has his car back now after riding the buses for a few days and forking out a few hundred of his hard-earned dollars for the insurance deductible.
ICBC is out more money to repair the broken window and the smashed steering column and all of our premiums will be going up again.
The teen will be released yet again and given more probation on top of the probation he continuously ignores.
And, mark my words on this, he will steal another car before this week is done.
And the charade will continue.
-30-