Work In Progress
We want Australia to have the best-informed vehicle owners in the world. This page is our live working plan – a content strategy, if you like.
Reducing Everyday Vehicle Theft
Most vehicle theft is opportunistic – not strategic. Thieves prey on unlocked homes, unsecured bikes, older cars not equipped with immobilisers. We put roadblocks in their way by creating car owners who are harder to steal from.
Making Theft Less Profitable
The small proportion of commercially-minded car thieves profit through rebirthing and parts stripping. We fight them by educating readers, who we hope never accidentally become unwitting participants in the trade.
Better Data For Consumers
This is the hard part. Unfortunately, as a publication, we can’t rebuild the former National Motor Vehicle Theft Reduction Council’s dataset. But we can compile what the states still publish and present the data in a way that’s easy to understand.
Obtaining car safety and vehicle crime data from Australian government bodies and insurers is no easy task.
So what have we already published, and what’s around the corner?
12 reports
The number of detailed dives live on the CARSAFE site right now. We cover everything from national and state theft data to how thieves actually operate.
Quarterly
How often the underlying sources refresh. Victoria’s Crime Statistics Agency publishes quarterly, the ABS annually and insurers release claims data as it suits them.
$2
Roughly what a federal PPSR check costs before buying a used car. It’s the topic of our next guide, due to be published in September. This two-dollar habit can prevent you from wasting tens of thousands of dollars on a rebirthed vehicle.
Zero
The number of agencies publishing national motorcycle theft statistics since the old council was wound up. We’re trying to plug that gap by parsing the motorcycle data out of the total car theft figures. It’s not an easy job – and has a high chance of failure – but we’ll give it a crack.