MOTOR-CAR THEFTS

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 72, 17 December 1938, Page 10

MOTOR-CAR THEFTS

Prevention By Simple

Precautions YOUTHFUL OFFENDERS Minister Emphasizes An Obligation On Owners The coming holiday season will doubtless intensify some problems concerning motor-cars, and among them the problem of preventing theft. The Minister of Justice, Mr. Mason, in an interview last evening, said that motorists themselves 'could assist very materially if, when parking a car after dark, they habitually locked or removed some part essential to its propulsion. “Unfortunately, in approximately 90 per cent, of cases of theft or unlawful conversion of cars, the offender is under the age of 23 years, said Mr. Mason. “In 216 out of 481 cases before the courts during 1936, accused were under the age of 17 years, and as such came under the jurisdiction of the children’s court. The youth of the offender is thus the striking feature of this class of offence. It is generally committed by those who are at an impressionable age —an age when action easily follows on suggestion and the saying ‘opportunity makes the thief’ has special force. Motorists owe it to themselves to take the precaution mentioned.

“It is a simple matter to lock a car. Unfortunately, in many makes of cars one lock is very like another and it may not be very difficult to find a key to open a locked car, but it is nearly* always found that the motorist has not even availed himself of that security which the lock does provide. But even in the case of cars without any lock it is a simple precaution, taking only a inomon't, to pull out and put in one’s pocket some small part essential to tire ear’s running. I have said that if motorists will habitually take this simple and not at all burdensome precaution whenever they leave a car unattended in the street after, dark, they will assist in the prevention or these thefts, but apart from each carowner ‘so guarding himself against loss he will be doing an important social service. “In the first place he will very likely be saving another car-owner from loss and perhaps from injury or death, for it is these stolen ears which are almost invariably driven recklessly and are most liable to be engaged in collisions. In the next place lie is preventing vouths entering upon a course of conduct which unhappily in many cases is the beginning of a career of crime. Thus self-interest and good citizenship combine to enjoin owners of cars habitually to take the precaution mentioned, and I therefore hope that they will form the habit during this holiday season."