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When Do Thieves Steal Cars?

Holiday vehicle thieves had their busiest day in 2015 on Halloween, stealing 2,238 vehicles according to NICB’s 2015 Annual Holiday Vehicle Theft Report. Theft data is culled from the National Crime Information Center’s (NCIC) stolen vehicle file which showed a total of 759,237 vehicle thefts for the year.

After Halloween, New Year’s Eve was the next most active holiday with 2,227 thefts. Labor Day came in third with 2,171 thefts followed by Christmas Eve with 2,071 thefts. Memorial Day rounds out the top five holidays for 2015 with 2,040 thefts.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, the holidays with the fewest thefts in 2015 were: Christmas Day (1,620), Thanksgiving (1,653), Valentine’s Day (1,690), President’s Day (1,787) and Independence Day (1,981).

Holidays ranked by the number of thefts in 2015 were:

1. Halloween (2,238)
2. New Year’s Eve (2,227)
3. Labor Day (2,171)
4. Christmas Eve (2,071)
5. Memorial Day (2,040)
6. New Year’s Day (2,029)
7. Independence Day (1,981)
8. President’s Day (1,787)
9. Valentine’s Day (1,690)
10. Thanksgiving (1,653)
11. Christmas Day (1,620)

While the holiday with the most thefts was Halloween, the most thefts on a single day in all of 2015 occurred on Monday, June 15, with 2,579.

According to NCIC, the lure of added shopping hours—and the presence of unattended vehicles in store parking lots—may be contributing to higher vehicle thefts on Black Friday.

The graph below shows the number of vehicle thefts reported on Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday from 2011 through 2015. There are, on average, over 30 percent more vehicle thefts on Black Friday than the day before. Moreover, the 2,244 thefts on Black Friday in 2015 were more than the 2,080 average daily thefts for the entire year.