Many Ohioans Lose Their Cars When Warming Them Up, Don’t Let Yourself Be Another Victim

It may not have felt like it until recently, but winter is here and the temperatures outside are dropping. Now, nobody likes to get into a cold car, I’m sure of that but if you don’t have a garage to keep your car warm you might be tempted to run out and start your car and then come back in to finish eating breakfast. Well, you might want to take a little bit more care than other Ohioans have been taking in doing so.

According to the Cincinnati Police, this is a bad idea as you can see in this article that WCPO has written.

According to statistics, up to 60 percent of the cars stolen in just Cincinnati are because their owner left it running with the keys in the ignition in front of a convenience store, a daycare, a school, or anywhere where they assumed that if they were away from there unlocked and running car there would be no time to steal it.

However, this is not the case as you can read in WCPO’s article. Some of these cars have even had young children in them and when the car they were in was stolen, the children were stolen with them.

Now even if your car has a key fob to start it, keep in mind that those can still be taken if the car is left unlocked. In one reported case, a car with a key fob was stolen and not recovered for 2 weeks because the criminal(s) never turned the car off during that time and kept gassing it up. Criminals are desperate and looking to steal something easily and a running car is very easy for them, even if they have to run it until it breaks down.

So how can we avoid situations like this? Our advice is to save the gas and only start your car when you are with it. It will warm up faster driving and it’s quicker to scrape the windows then to let that car melt the frost. Not to mention if you are around, your firearm should be right next to you unless, of course, you don’t carry every day.

But if you have a reason you absolutely have to leave your car while it is running, make sure you head down to the locksmith and get a copy of your vehicle’s key. Just to make sure you can lock all the doors and windows in order for your vehicle to not become an easy target for a criminal.

What do you think of this story? Have you or someone you know ever had to defend your car from a potential thief? Let us know in the comments below.