The Nissan Altima is billed as an intelligent, all-wheel vehicle, but it has no chance against car thieves who want to steal it. The Altima is the most stolen new model car, a study by driving-tests.org revealed.
Regardless of a diverse range of anti-theft devices – horn alarms, flashing lights, wheel-locking, immobilizing and electronic tracking technology – car thieves theft 773,139 vehicles in 2017, which was a 1 percent increase from the prior year, driving-tests.org discovered in its review of the recent available data. Driving-tests.org helps drivers get their state motor vehicle licenses by carrying out practice tests and working with an online simulator.
Those car thefts cost drivers and their insurers about $6 billion, driving-tests.org discovered, mentioning data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the FBI and the National Insurance Crime Bureau. The study also revealed which models of cars were likely to be stolen, along with the states and cities where drivers are most likely to see their cars stolen.
The Honda Civic surpassed all other models when it comes to total number of thefts, at over 45,000 annually, followed closely by the Honda Accord. Accords and Civics tend to have a similar design every year, so an auto part from one year can be substituted for another, making them prominent with both legitimate mechanics and illegal chop shops. Older model Hondas, such as 1998, are generally prized by thieves since there wasn’t much anti-theft technology in the vehicle at that time, according to the study.
Even so, thefts of Civics and Accords are on the decrease, declining about 10 percent and 13 percent, respectively, in 2017. By contrast, Ford full-sized pickups are more costly in the chop shop trade, with thefts increasing 7 percent to 35,105 in 2017.
