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Vehicle rip-offs change with the times

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“The other day, I ran into a friend. He told me two men had approached him in broad daylight. One sprayed some kind of tear gas in his face. Then they roughed him up, grabbed his keys, got in his Class S Mercedes-Benz and drove off.”

So begins a column in Nikkan Gendai (April 8) by auto writer Atsushi Sato. It was with memories of this misfortune in mind when he spotted the just-published statistical figures for insurance payoffs on auto thefts in 2007. According to a report issued March 25 by the General Insurance Association of Japan, auto thieves have shifted their targets, resulting in thefts of minivans to leap from 16.1% of the total in 2006 to 26.8% last year.

This gave the Toyota Hi-Ace -- 134 of which were gone in 60 seconds, so to speak -- the dubious distinction of being car thieves’ most popular model, surpassing the heretofore top model, the Toyota Land Cruiser.

For the second year running, the prefecture with the greatest number of thefts was Osaka, with 199. Osaka eclipsed Aichi, which had long led the nation, from 2006. Thefts in Aichi last year declined to 79, putting it in 4th place after Chiba (128 units) and Kanagawa (117 units).

According to the survey, issued annually by the association since 2000, the two most likely places from which a car is likely to be stolen is while parked outdoors at one’s house (31.9%) and in a contracted parking lot (31.5%). Over half of the thefts took place between the hours of 10 p.m. and 9 a.m.

The rise in Hi-Ace thefts appears to be due to its popularity in Southeast Asia, one of the main outlets for stolen vehicles from Japan.

Toyota vehicles are, in any event, highly popular with thieves, accounting last year for four out of the top five most frequently stolen models. (The other three were the Harrier, 2nd place; the Mark X, 4th place; and the Land Cruiser, 5th place.)

New to the association’s list for the first time was a minicar, which is classified as having an engine with under 600cc displacement. Suzuki’s Wagon-R -- ranked the best selling passenger car model in Japan among all categories in 2007 -- made it to fourth place.

From the above, Sato reports, a general trend can be seen away from thefts of high-performance sports coupes and SUVs, such as the previously popular Nissan Skyline GT-R and Toyota Land Cruiser, respectively, toward more utilitarian vehicles.

The report put the total number of stolen vehicles as 825, with another 3,138 incidents of theft of car accessories or contents, such as navigation systems, audio units or other items reported.

These figures, it should be noted, represent claims for which compensation was paid out by association members up to November 2007 and should not be confused with the considerably larger figure of reported auto thefts. According to police statistics, 31,790 four-wheel vehicles were stolen nationwide last year, down by slightly more than half from the all-time peak in 2003, when 64,223 units were stolen.

© Japan Today

©2024 GPlusMedia Inc.

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Toyota Hi-Ace vans are (or were at least) a favorite of the "traveling people" in Ireland, colloquially referred to as "knackers" . On a business trip there a long time ago I heard Toyota even mention it in a commercial, "Drive a Hi-Ace, 100,000 knackers can't all be wrong!" The ad lasted 3 days, and was pulled for slandering that particular sector of society. Hurt feelings apparently.

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Err, is that article saying that there was 825 successful claims from 31,790 thefts?

Looking at the association's web site, 22 out of 48 Japanese insurers are members, with the big ones like Sonpo Japan and Sony there, so it's not like they only represent the 3% of the market these figures suggest.

Oh, and someone's stolen the end of the article.

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If only it were posssible to get the numbers of stolen Honda Cubs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaeKrqJJqm0

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WhatJapanThinks --

Err, is that article saying that there was 825 successful claims from 31,790 thefts?

What makes you sure that most Japanese car owners are insured? It's not compulsory. The association's web site said that most of the claims for theft were paid out, and gave the numbers. Look again, at the pdf file.

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Notice no one crack down on the ports in the Kobe Osaka area to stop the shipment, but I bring a Diablo in from Saudi and they think its hiding Al Quaeda in the trunk.

I remember two years ago a guy bought a new Toyota. Fully insured he thought it was safe three days later it was gone. He contacted his insurer and they declined to pay out stating that "Toyota says the car cant be stolen"

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He contacted his insurer and they declined to pay out stating that "Toyota says the car cant be stolen"

That is a total BS story. Don't make stuff up.

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He contacted his insurer and they declined to pay out stating that "Toyota says the car cant be stolen"

That is a total BS story. Don't make stuff up

Ya think, it was on the evening news

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They can't be "stolen". They can be "misplaced", "unwillingly loaned", "Driven by others" or have an "underhanded change in ownership", but they can't be "stolen"!

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For your interest Beelzebub here in the Province of B.C. Canada to obtain a License plate or renew it one must have valid insurance. I guess this has been going on since '68 I had assumed other countries did the same, BUT stealing cars has NOT been slowen down.

Stealing of cars seems to be a world wide sort of thing.

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Smythe, you seem to be confusing theft insurance with liability. I don't think there's any country in the world where theft insurance is compulsory. It's certainly not in Japan.

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You have a good point Beizebub, the minimun required in the Province of B.C. is Liability insurance being compulsory. I pay the small extra to have Fire & Theift insurance on my mini-SUV & my motorcycles.

Obviously if someone has a loan from a bank or loan through an automotive firm or m/c shop THEN full coverage is demanded.

Up untill '01 I only carried Liability insurance, but with the stealing of cars & m/cs for the small amount rxtra I added Fire & Theift--my own doing for I do have three attractive sportbikes as well.

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I heard there's a new racket out there called 'shaken'

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