Cape Town - According to the latest Vehicle Crime Index (VCI) released by Tracker, a vehicle tracking company, vehicle crime is continuing to rise with a 12% increase in theft in 2022 compared with 2021, and a significant increase in hijackings for the same period.
The data, collated from more than 1.1 million Tracker-installed vehicles, shows that opportunistic vehicle crimes, like hijackings that increased during the Covid-19 lockdown, remain elevated following the return to normal daily routines – along with newer criminal tactics such as key-less entry theft contributing to this increase.
The statistics from Tracker's VCI also showed that while vehicle crime incidents occur seven days a week and throughout the day and night, reported thefts were more prevalent between 11am and 8pm, and these theft volumes escalated on Saturdays. Reported hijacking were slightly elevated on Fridays, and between the hours of 4pm and 8pm .
Tracker COO Duma Ngcobo said: “Incidents for 2022 sit some 13% above 2021 volumes. Gauteng incidents rose by more than 18%. The largest contributor to this increase was vehicle theft, which rose 22% year on year. Gauteng hijacking incidents in 2022 were also 15% higher than the previous year.”
Tracker’s data reported a similar trend in the Western Cape with a 14% increase in year-on-year vehicle crime incidents.
Although the Western Cape incident volumes were significantly less than those in Gauteng, the company said this nonetheless mirrored the upward trend observed nationally and in Gauteng.
Ngcobo added that violent vehicle crime incidents also continued their upward trajectory in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) with a 25% increase in hijackings from 2020 to 2021, and a further increase of 8% during 2022.
“While KZN’s theft/hijacking ratio for 2020 was reported at 54% for thefts and 46% for hijackings, it is now hijackings accounting for 54% of KZN incidents,” Ngcobo said.