Selly Oak is home to several thousand cars during term time, which as you could expect can be an attraction to potential thieves.  Due to advances in vehicle security in recent years car theft is more less common than in the past and the main risk to your car is theft from it through an unlocked door or smashed window.

Most car thieves are opportunists who will take advantage of swift and easy opportunities through unlocked doors and items being left on display.  It only takes a thief a few seconds to get into a vehicle and even relatively cheap security precautions can put them off.

What you can do:

The simplest things are to ensure that you keep your car locked and any valuable items out of display and better still out of the car.

• Moving out or moving in?  Tempting as it is to leave the car for a few seconds whilst moving items in and out of the house, try and make sure you keep the car locked between journeys and better still ask the a friend or family member to keep an eye on it until you’re done.
• Sat navs – remove them from the car when you are not in it.  If you have to keep them in the car, lock them out of site.  Be sure to wipe the tell tale sucker marks from the front window – you may take it with you but that might not stop a thief from smashing a window to check.
• Valuables, such as phones, wallets – Do not leave them on display.  This seems obvious but you would be surprised by how many people forget to do this and leave them on a front seat.
• Immobilise – just in case any of your stuff is taken, make sure it is registed on the national property database to help recover it and the Police to track down the thief.