Southern Interior bucking provincial car theft trend, but not in a good way

While the number of vehicles stolen each year is falling in B.C., it’s on the upswing in the Southern Interior.

Data from the Insurance Corporation of B.C. shows the number of vehicles stolen in B.C. and reported to ICBC over the past five years peaked at 9,800 vehicles in 2015 and hit a low of 8,200 vehicles in 2018 before climbing to 8,400 last year.

In the Southern Interior, 1,200 vehicles were stolen in 2015, 1,100 in 2016 and then the number climbed by 100 per year to peak at 1,400 last year.

The greatest decline in thefts was in the Lower Mainland where they peaked at 7,300 in 2015 but have fallen steadily to 5,400 last year.

The Southern Interior followed the upward trend in vehicle break-ins throughout B.C. Those have gone from a low of 650 in 2015 in the Southern Interior, to 830 last year. That’s out of a provincial total of 9,800.

When it comes to vandalism of vehicles, that’s held at 20,000 a year in B.C. for the past three years. In the Southern Interior it’s climbed from 1,700 a year from 2014 through 2016 to a peak of 2,000 in 2019.

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