Having a warm car is not worth having it stolen
Keep the engine running. A cardinal rule for getaway drivers; bad advice for the rest of us. Law enforcement agencies around the U.S. have been gearing up for the seasonal uptick of “puffer” thefts, where thieves steal a running vehicle after its driver leaves it unattended to warm up. (They’re called puffer thefts because of the puffs of exhaust vapor that come our of a car sitting in the driveway in cold weather.) It could be because you want to de-ice the engine for a long trip, let the heater work for a warmer drive, or finish an errand that you know will only take a few minutes. But whatever the reason may be, leaving your car idle isn’t worth having it stolen. It Could Happen to You It may seem like a red-flag mistake, but drivers leave their cars vulnerable to theft more often than you’d think. The National Insurance Crime Bureau (NICB) says that 1 out of every 5 stolen vehicles had keys in them, while nearly half of vehicles were unlocked when stolen. And another NICB su