Safe Trailhead Parking
It’s hiking season which means leaving your vehicle unattended for a stretch of time in a vulnerable location. Sometimes it’s for a couple of hours while you go on a hike, overnight if you have a long hike (e.g. Skyline trail in Jasper National Park), or at your campsite.
There are always some questions in the back of your mind when you get back to the parking lot after your hike: Is the vehicle still there, has it been broken into, and do I still have the keys?
Fortunately, we don’t often hear about vehicle break-ins at trailhead parking spots, but that doesn’t mean they don’t occur. So, I’ll attempt to give you some tips to lessen the chances that something happened to your vehicle while you’re out enjoying the great outdoors. Most of these tips everyone knows, but as I’ve stressed before, do you follow them?
It starts with where you park your vehicle in the trailhead parking lot. Choose a place that is out in the open, the more open, the better. Don’t give potential thieves a place to hide while they are accessing your vehicle.
Lock your vehicle. This seems like a no-brainer, but for some inexplicable reason some people don’t do this. This is probably the most important thing you can do. During a crime spree this past winter where thieves were breaking into vehicles located at people’s residences, there was video evidence where the thieves tried the doors, and if locked, moved on to the next vehicle. If unlocked, they went through the vehicle, and in one case the keys were in the vehicle, and it was stolen.
Close all windows and the sunroof. It’s better to come back to a hot vehicle than one that has been stolen or broken into. Not only are there the 2-legged thieves we have to worry about, but also wildlife. Bears have been known to force their way into vehicles via partially opened windows, and some have even learned to use the door handle to gain access to a vehicle. If you want to lessen the heat buildup in your vehicle you can use one of those cardboard screens that you place inside the windshield.
Hide valuable items, or if small enough, take them with you (e.g. cellphone). Lock them in the trunk or put them under the seat. If a thief doesn’t see anything of value, he has less incentive to go to the trouble of breaking in when there may be easier targets in other vehicles in the parking lot. Even small change should not be visible. Don’t give a thief the slightest reason to break in.
Hiding stuff in the glovebox is better than not hiding anything there but be aware that if a thief does break in, the glovebox is definitely going to get searched. If you leave your garage door opener and your vehicle registration or insurance card in there, you’ve basically left the keys to your residence for him. He’ll use the address on the documents to find your house and then use the garage door opener to gain access to your garage. If your garage is attached to your house, he can gain access to your house as well.
If your garage door opener is stolen, reprogram your garage door immediately so that the stolen opener won’t work.
Use an anti-theft device such as a steering wheel lock. If he’s going to steal a vehicle, he’ll look for an easier target. The other thing it tells a thief is that your theft conscious and he’s less likely to find anything to steal. Those wheel lock devices can be foiled but a thief isn’t going to use up valuable time when there are easier targets available. Get into the habit of using your wheel lock. It’s right up there in importance with locking your car as a theft deterrent.
Following the above practices won’t ensure nothing happens to your car while you’re away, but it will reduce the probabilities that something will. Do what you can, and the more obstacles you put in a thief ’s way, the more likely he is to pass on to easier targets. The above practices do not take very long to implement.
Meanwhile, here are some statistics from the Alberta Rural Crime Watch Provincial Association as it relates to vehicle thefts in Alberta:
- Alberta accounts for 21% of all motor vehicle thefts in Canada
- Pick up trucks dominate the Top 10 list of stolen vehicles
- 40% of stolen vehicles had the keys in them
- 80% of stolen vehicles in Alberta are recovered (but often not in the same condition as they were prior to the theft)
Dave Schroeder
HCRCWA Board Member
