MOTOR VEHICLE THEFT AND THEFT FROM A MOTOR VEHICLE ^{Endnote 1}

MOTOR VEHICLE THEFT

What is motor vehicle theft?

In this survey, motor vehicle theft is defined as an incident where a motor vehicle was stolen from any member of the household. This includes:

• cars, utilities, motorcycles (including motorised scooters), buses, trucks and motor homes
• privately owned vehicles and business/employer/company owned vehicles only if the vehicle was used exclusively by members of the household.
  

Motor vehicle theft excludes boats, trailers and company vehicles not used exclusively by household members.

For the purposes of this survey, motor vehicle theft incidents are considered to be household crimes rather than a crime against an individual person.

Victimisation and reporting rates for 2014-15 (Table 1)

In the 12 months prior to interview in 2014-15, an estimated 53,400 households (0.6% of all households) experienced motor vehicle theft. Over 9 in 10 households (94%) that experienced motor vehicle theft reported the most recent incident to police.

What else do we know about motor vehicle theft incidents? (Table 22)

In the most recent incident of motor vehicle theft in the 12 months prior to interview, the most common location where motor vehicle theft occurred was a home location (47% of incidents). The second most common location was in the street or other open land (39%).


THEFT FROM A MOTOR VEHICLE

What is theft from a motor vehicle?

In this survey, theft from a motor vehicle is defined as the theft of property owned by any member of the household from a motor vehicle owned (for private use) by any member of that household.

It excludes:

• property stolen that belonged to someone not living in the household (e.g. a friend or other relative)
• property owned by a business or employer (e.g. a computer, mobile phone or work tools)
• property stolen from commercial vehicles (this includes a self-employed business operator whose vehicle is mainly used for work purposes)
• any break-in into a motor vehicle if nothing was stolen.

Victimisation and reporting rates for 2014-15 (Table 1)

During the 12 months prior to interview, an estimated 254,700 households (2.9% of all households) experienced theft from a motor vehicle. Just over half of all households (53%) that experienced theft from a motor vehicle reported the most recent incident to police.

What else do we know about theft from motor vehicle incidents? (Table 23)

This section discusses characteristics of the most recent incident for households that experienced theft from a motor vehicle in the 12 months prior to interview.

In the most recent incident of theft from a motor vehicle experienced by households:

• The most common type of property stolen was money, purse, or a wallet (42% or 107,300 households), followed by other personal items (28% or 71,900 households)
• The most common location of theft from a motor vehicle was the person's home (67% or 169,200 households), followed by in the street or other open land (12% or 30,600 households)
• Over one-quarter (28% or 70,200 households) of households that experienced theft from a motor vehicle did not report the incident to police as it was considered to be too trivial or unimportant. A further 12% (31,300 households) did not report the incident to police as it was believed that there was nothing the police could do.

ENDNOTE

Endnote 1 All comparisons discussed have been tested for statistical significance with a 95% level of confidence that there is a real difference in the two populations being tested. Only data with a relative standard error (RSE) of less than 25% are referred to in the text of this publication and these estimates are considered sufficiently reliable for general use. To determine whether there is a statistical difference between any other two estimates, significance testing should be undertaken. For further information, refer to the Technical Note.