CAR SECURITY TRACKER SYSTEMS

At 11.35am on Saturday 27th February, a Saab 900 Turbo Coupe was broken into and driven furtively from the forecourt of Cubleys garage in Ainsdale near Southport. Nothing unusual in that; statistics suggest that close to 1,700 other vehicles would have been stolen across the UK that day.

This car, however, was one of the few that would be recovered. And not weeks or months later either, battered, abused and abandoned in a housing estate or at the edge of a field. Just fourteen minutes after the car had been reported missing, a police team knocked on the door of Mr and Mrs Douglas Atkins in Selworthy Road.

Much to the surprise of everyone except the arresting officers, the car was found behind locked garage doors. All in a day's work for Police Constables Mike Brady and Paul Ray of the Merseyside Police Tracker Unit Team. Though this particular `theft` was staged for Granada TV, they're regularly called out on `live` calls where the criminals don't stand a chance.



You could be forgiven for wondering how that could be. After all, over 600,000 cars a year are stolen in Britain - a quarter of all crimes committed - which makes this country the car criminal's adopted home. And despite the fact that by and large, our cars are the best-protected in Europe, the recovery rate has up until now been appallingly low.



But things can be changed - according at least to Tracker, a system for tracing stolen vehicles that claims an astonishing 94% success record. Most Tracker-equipped cars are, like Cubleys' Saab, recovered the same day, many in under two hours. There's nowhere for the thieves to hide either; the Port of Felixstowe Police have even used it to pinpoint a Mercedes 300SL, stolen for the second time, and hidden in one of 56,000 containers.
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