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Vehicle theft and hijackings are back to pre-Covid levels, and Gauteng is SA's vehicle crime hotspot, followed by KwaZulu-Natal and then the Western Cape.
That's according to the findings of Tracker's latest Vehicle Crime Index for the six months from January to June 2022 which aggregates information from their more than 1.1 million installed vehicle base.
Alarmingly, the report also reveals that "keyless access theft is on the rise."
According to a statement, the latest Index for the first half of 2022 illustrates that crime continues to intensify in Gauteng, which accounts for 61% of national Tracker incidents, up from 58% recorded for the latter half of 2021.
This is followed by KwaZulu Natal at 17% of total incidents, and the Western Cape at 8%.
Duma Ngcobo, Chief Operations Officer at Tracker says vehicle theft is up 7% nationally by volume and hijackings up 4% over the previous review period.
"Gauteng incident volumes have increased 10% from the last review period, with theft comprising 48% of incidents and hijackings 52%."
"We believe the increase in incident volume can in part be attributed to a return to 'normal' as people make their way back to their places of work and social activities ramp up following Covid-19 protocol relaxations," he said.
