West Coast cities see spike in car thefts

The population-based study of FBI data shows that California and Washington have the highest per-capita theft rates in the country.

The West Coast is the worst place to protect your car from thieves, according to the latest per-capita statistics from the National Insurance Crime Bureau.

The NICB, a nonprofit organization that collects data for insurance companies, listed thefts from 381 metro areas in 2012, as defined and gathered by the FBI. Many of the same California metro areas from the previous year again dominated the top 10 spots with the highest reported car thefts per 100,000 people. Modesto, Calif., was number one at 817 thefts per 100,000 people, followed by Fresno (798), Bakersfield (794) and Stockton-Lodi (703).

Washington cities claimed two of the 10 spots, with the Yakima area ranking fifth (674 thefts per 100,000 people) and Spokane-Spokane Valley at number nine (568). According to preliminary statistics from the FBI, West Coast car thefts have shot up 10.6 percent, even though thefts in all other areas of the country fell from 3 to 8 percent.

Due to more thefts in California and Washington, the national theft rate is up 1.3 percent from 2011, when thefts dropped 3.3 percent year-over-year and represented a 35-percent slide since 2007.

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