Auto Thefts Spike on Halloween Night

Auto Thefts Spike on Halloween Night, But Be in Good Spirts!

Most are familiar with the night before Halloween being associated with mayhem, soaped windows and occasional tossed egg, but not everyone knows that Halloween Night typically sees a ghastly spike in car thefts — rising 7 to 10 percent over the 2,000-daily average.

With so many ghouls, ghosts, and masked holiday revelers roaming the streets and having parties, the National Insurance Crime Bureau (NICB) thought it would be an interesting exercise to see if there was a correlation between Halloween revelry and auto thefts. As sure as pumpkin spice everything in October, there was a correlation.

What was interesting was the daily number of vehicle thefts in the U.S. since 2011 has hovered fairly close to the 2,000 mark. As you might expect, trucks like GMC, Dodge Ram, and Ford Pickups are high on the list of vehicles stolen, and popular sedans like the Honda Civic, Honda Accord, Toyota Camry, Nissan Altima and Chevrolet Impala also make the Top 10 List.

The NICB makes four key recommendations to avoid distasteful treat or a costly trick on Halloween or any other night.

• Secure your car. Don’t leave your vehicle running or unlocked—not even on an unseasonably warm or cold day, or before a quick stop at the convenience store. Keep your keys on you at all times and roll up your windows all the way before turning off your ignition.
• Warning devices. NICB recommends that the next most rigorous layer of safety is the use of warning devices, like aftermarket alarms, steering column collars, brake locks, and wheel locks.
• Immobilizing devices. Many cars are equipped with sophisticated safety features that prevent would-be thieves from hot-wiring cars or bypassing ignition. These include smart keys, fuse cut-offs, and kill switches: knowledge of your car’s capabilities is a vital element of car ownership.
• Tracking. Having some form of vehicle recovery system could be the difference between an irrevocable theft and a successful track down of your stolen auto. GPS or other wireless tracking systems allow remote systems to alert owners and track vehicle movement.

Fortunately, Procon Analytics has developed Connected Dealer Services (CDS), which is a complete Dealer Lifecycle Management (DLM) system that enhances numerous facets of a franchise dealership’s operation including stolen vehicle recovery. CDS secures a dealership’s entire inventory, including stock, loaner, fleet and demo vehicles. Dealers can instantly locate, find and recover missing or stolen inventory anywhere in the U.S., Mexico and Canada.

Once the vehicle is sold, the solution can be transferred from the dealership to the car buyer. Consumers can use this same advanced GPS technology to connect and protect their vehicles by downloading the Elo GPS app. Elo GPS provides car owners with a highly desirable and sophisticated connected car service including features such as: pinpointing vehicle location from a desktop or mobile device; driver behavior monitoring (i.e. hard braking, hard acceleration, etc.); user-defined boundary alerts; battery life; service mileage and support when a check an engine light is triggered. Elo GPS turns any car into a connected car!

This no “tricks” only “treats” solution improves dealership’s customer satisfaction, and because the service mileage and DTC alerts are sent directly to the service manager, it also boosts customer service retention and service department profitability.

If, as sadly occurs 2,000 times a day, a vehicle is stolen, or car jacked from a CDS dealership or from a consumer who has opted to subscribe to Elo GPS, a stolen vehicle recovery center is just a call away. A recovery agent will work hand-in-hand with law enforcement to make sure the vehicle is recovered immediately.

So, don’t be scared. Make sure you’re protected with CDS and Elo GPS! Happy Halloween! Be safe!