Every 24 seconds, a motor vehicle is stolen in the United States. Contrary to popular belief, thieves not only target expensive cars, but most frequently, the cars more often stolen are in the middle price range. Cars are stolen not for their value but for the resale value of their parts particularly valuable when they are no longer manufactured or are too difficult or too expensive to obtain.

Stolen cars transported across frontiers have become common features in many countries, an almost inevitable consequence of globalization.

Recently in Albania, I was amazed at the high number of Mercedes Benz cars in Tirana, Albania’s capital city, until a friend explained to me that many among them were stolen cars that came originally from Germany. A similar sight can be observed in many Central American countries where stolen cars from the U.S. make their way south of the Mexican border.

I was recently talking to a policeman, and when I told him that I lived in Soho, in downtown Manhattan, he asked me what type of car I had. When I told him it was one of the leading Japanese models, he told me, “You are a prime candidate to have your car stolen.” When I asked him the reason, he explained that Japanese cars have a very good resale price and that living in downtown Manhattan, I was near the Holland tunnel. It is thus very easy for the robbers to go to New Jersey, out of reach of the New York police. From New Jersey, the car can be transported to other States. Since the policeman’s comment, I decided to use a parking garage rather than keeping the car in the street, although garage prices in New York can run into several hundred dollars a month.

Recent research from the Netherlands found that thieves are less likely to steal brightly colored cars because they have a lower resale value. They can also be more easily detected. Of 109 pink cars in the study, none were stolen.

In former times, when thieves didn’t steal the car, they would break the window and take the portable radio or CD player. For a very long time, parking the car in the street used to be a rather annoying experience, particularly when one was liable to find the window broken and the interior of the car vandalized.

My wife had this unpleasant experience when she left the car in a suburban parking lot. The car was stolen by some adolescents for a joy ride, and when the police returned it, the interior had been totally vandalized --probably by the police looking for hidden drugs.

A physician friend of mine had apparently solved this problem. When he parked his car in the street, he used to put a note in the window saying, “NO RADIO, NO CD PLAYER, NO VALUABLES INSIDE.” For a long time his car was safe and my friend was very happy at having fooled potential robbers. Until one day, he came back to his car and found a note in the back window saying, “NOW, NO SPARE TIRE”.

Dr. César Chelala is a writer on human rights and foreign policy issues.