Motor vehicle theft (sometimes referred to as grand theft auto by the media and police departments in the US) is the criminal act of stealing or attempting to steal a motor vehicle (such as an automobile, truck, bus, coach, motorcycle, or snowmobile, trailer). Nationwide in the US in 2005, there were an estimated 1.2 million motor vehicle thefts, or approximately 416.7 motor vehicles stolen for every 100,000 inhabitants. Property losses due to motor vehicle theft in 2005 were estimated at $7.6 billion. Since then the number of motor thefts nationally has declined. The most recent statistics, for 2009, show an estimated 794,616 thefts of motor vehicles nationwide, representing property losses of nearly $5.2 billion.
Read more about Motor Vehicle Theft: Methods, Commonly Used Tools, Vehicles Most Frequently Stolen, Prevention, Recovery of Stolen Vehicles
Famous quotes containing the words motor, vehicle and/or theft:
“This biplane is the shape of human flight.
Its name might better be First Motor Kite.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“If you are to reach masses of people in this world, you must do it by a sign language. Whether your vehicle be commerce, literature, or politics, you can do nothing but raise signals, and make motions to the people.”
—John Jay Chapman (1862–1933)
“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. The world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its labourers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.”
—Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969)