It Takes Five Minutes to Warm Up Your Car. It Takes Two Minutes for a Thief to Steal It.
“It’s human nature. Everyone wants to get into a
warm car. There are a lot of things worse than getting into a cold car.
One of them is walking out and finding your car missing.” – Mayor Bill
Finch
(Bridgeport, CT – Nov. 26, 2014) – Bridgeport expecting snow on Wednesday with lows in the 20s and teens at the end of the week.
“Old habits die hard. And as the mercury drops, we see
an increase in cars being stolen with keys as people warm up their
vehicles in the morning,” said Police Chief Joseph L. Gaudett Jr.
It is a myth that warming up your car for a few
minutes is necessary to prevent some unspecified damage. And it is a
fact that if you warm up your car unattended as you finish your morning
coffee, you run the risk of it being gone when you come out of your
house.
“It’s human nature. Everyone wants to get into a warm
car,” said Mayor Bill Finch. “There are a lot of things worse than
getting into a cold car. Certainly, one of them is walking out and
finding your car missing as you get ready to drive to work or take your
kids to school.”
According to Gaudett, police every year see an
increase in reports of cars stolen “with keys” as the temperature drops.
Many times, that occurs as people warm up their cars outside their
homes. Sometimes it happened when people run into a store for five
minutes with their car running outside.
“This is a universal issue. Everyone has done it. I’ve
done it,” said Gaudett. “But it truly is rolling the dice. You can do
it 50 times without a problem. What about number 51. People work too
hard to risk losing their cars because of five minutes of carelessness.”
Currently, police are searching for 12 vehicles stolen “with keys,” a quarter of the total current number of stolen vehicles.