July 16, 2025 • 9 mins
ABC's Jim Ryan reports that while thefts are down, operator error is still one of the reasons a lot of car thefts continue
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Check your car, make sure it's in the driveway. I'm
just especially if you had a Kia or a Hyundai.
And we're here in central Ohio. Jim Ryan from ABC
standing by right now. Jim the statistics. I was just
telling Campy locally, we were just we were overrow run
by the Kia thefts here over the past couple of years.
But in the past year, since last summer, the news
(00:20):
story seemed to have slowed down. Now, sure have the
thefts slowed down or they's not talking about them?
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Well, they have, they have. We've seen a drop at
a client in auto thefts. Last year nationally, the auto
theft fell seventeen percent compared to twenty twenty three. That's dramatic. Still,
you had something like eight hundred and fifty one thousand
cars and trucks stolen across the country. That was lower
than the year before by several hundred thousand, but still
(00:48):
it's a problem. And yeah, the Kia boys spelled with
a zla there.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
You gotta be correct on that. Make sure you don't
mess up on the press.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Yeah, if you're gonna Google, I think goes. But yeah,
those TikTok videos teaching people essentially a little primer on
how to steal a Kia or a Hyundai using a
USB connector. They were all the rage a few years ago.
Kia and Hyundai have fixed the problem, Chuck that made
them susceptible being stolen that way, but still get a
lot of older models out there, and then they're still
(01:18):
getting ripped off.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
And you know, I often wondered why, because everybody has incentives.
Whether it's an air conditioner company or a car company,
it doesn't matter. Everybody's got incentives. I often wondered why
the Hundai Corporation didn't start paying part of your insurance
if you bought one of their cars, because you know,
people got nervous. It's a great deal. I like the car,
but if you know it's one of the top five
(01:39):
most stolen cars in the country, do I really want
to take that risk?
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Yeah, well that's true. I mean, and if you buy one,
you need to buy one that's fairly new. After twenty
twenty one, I think is when the fix went at
a place so that they weren't so easy to steal.
But still, I mean, if you look at the top
five most stolen vehicles on the insurance industry's list, the
Hondai Sonata, the Hondai Lantra, than the Kia Soul, the
(02:03):
Kia Sportage, the Kia Forty, all of them, these South
Korean models that were fairly easy to rip off. You
go down the list then and it's all over the place,
Chevy pickup trucks, the Jeep, Grand, Cherokee, Dodge Chargers, Honda,
a Cord, Honta, Civik. So yeah, those top five remain
those South Korean vehicles that we learned were pretty easy
to rip off.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
And the Hyundai Kia Corporation has quite a few SUVs
on the road now. However, their little small sedan seem
to be more of a target than their SUVs. I
don't know if there's any technological difference between the two,
but that's something I'm very very curious about. Why is
this Sonata more attractive than the Tucson.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
Well, it apparently didn't have this this fix in place,
essentially the security feature. See the problem is that those
older vehicles, the Elantra, the Sonata, the Kia Soul, they
the ones made between twenty eleven and on twenty one
didn't have this electronic engine immobilizer which most vehicles now
(03:05):
have a standard equipment, so it was fairly easy to
just break off the steering column cover, then stick the
USB connector down in there, close the circuit and the
starter and the thing starts up and there you go.
But yeah, so that has been repaired now. So I
suspect that in years forward. I mean, at some point
we're going to start seeing the Hunda and the Sonata
(03:26):
drop off as the older ones are either stolen or
hard junked and the newer ones come on the road.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
It's Jim Ryan by way from ABC News joining us
right now. Jim, do you know if there's any kind
of extrapolation as far as demographics is it. Obviously there's
more people in city, so you're going to have more
car thefts. But when you look at it, per capita,
are there as many country boys having fun as there
are city boys committing I mean, does it break down
(03:51):
in any significant way?
Speaker 2 (03:53):
Well, it's a rural and an urban problem, and it's
an issue all over the country whether you live in
the country or in the city. There is kind of
a state by state breakdown, a regional difference in in
which vehicles are stolen. In Montana, for example, the four
fifty is stolen more than any other vehicles, because that's
that's a lot of what people are driving. The GMC Savannah.
(04:15):
In New Hampshire, North Carolina, it's the Hondai Alantra. And
in Ohio, yes, you guys are right there along with
the national trend. Hondai Alandri is the most stolen one
three hundred and fifty one stolen last year.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Wow. Okay, well, welcome to the book. I stay, if
you're going to visit drive a Buwick. That's all I
can tell you. That's all I could tell you. And
these statistics again, these are for model years that came before.
Now they have corrected the problem. It's not like it's
something apparently that the current models are susceptible to whether
you're driving a Hyundai or a Kia.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
Correct, well exactly, But I mean you've still got user
error out there, right. People who leave the car running
when they go into their apartment are going to grab
a cup of coffee and then come back ount find
it that it's gone. They don't leave the vehicle locked,
and they do things that you know that make still
a protected car vulnerable to being stolen. So yeah, there
(05:12):
are things you can do to help protect yourself, and
mainly just being careful of being cognizant of what's going
on around you and making sure your car is locked
getting into the garage if you have a garage.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
That's that's such easy stuff to do. Jim Ryan for
maybe you see news. Always a pleasure to talk to you.
But they have a wonderful Wednesday. We'll talk again soon.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
Thanks, Chuck.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
Here in the state of Ohio or anywhere else, don't
leave your car running. I mean, isn't that just practical advice?
But people do it all the time, and I'm one
of those people for it.
Speaker 3 (05:42):
Yeah, but you know, when it's six degrees outside and
you're only fifteen feet away from your car, you're thinking
you're gonna be okay.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
But when the car thief is twelve feet away, well
you kind of hell. Do you know that, Chuck, Because
they're everywhere. Yeah, that's the problem. The bad guys are everywhere,
just waiting for an opportunity to pounce anymore. And the uh,
you know, we've got on the family transport, on the van,
we've got the remote starter and you can start it
with the windows locked. But you know, in a fit
(06:09):
of desperation. Some idiot could bust out the window just
to open the door and get in there and take off.
It's you don't know the level of crazy that is
around you. And the problem.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
The one issue I had with my model vehicle is
that you couldn't lock the doors once the car started,
you know, like everybody has the key fobs. You figure
you can start the car and then lock. So yeah,
if somebody was trying to get in and would have
broken the window, and I heard it because I was
right there, But yeah, it's it's very it's a it's
a little freaky to know that someone was watching.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
They had to.
Speaker 3 (06:42):
I mean it was there and gone in a hurry,
So yeah, do I accept some responsibility for that. Absolutely.
It's just you know, when you when you know you
have you know, as a diabetic, and you're again not
an excuse, but six degrees you don't want your insulin freezing.
So I waited for it to warm up so I
could it in the passer's seat with my backpack and everything.
(07:02):
And yeah it was but yeah, that was I don't
think I've ever been that upset, especially the fact that
they were minors so they weren't charged. Oh they identified
of course, so you couldn't go to anybody and say, well,
you guys owe me. I had five thousand dollars damage
done to my car.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
I had to trade myself with the whole key fob
thing because this is the first vehicle we've ever had
a key fob on it. And you know, you get out,
I manually hit the button to lock the doors, and
you get out, and then you grab the door handle
to close it. Yeah, then the door unlocks. Yeah, because
the key fobs in your pocket. Yeah. Okay, So I
had to train myself on how to actually get out
(07:41):
of my car and lock it up because you think
you locked it, inadvertently unlocked it and defeated yourself.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
Yeah. Yeah, these you guys too. Just for more details.
Here's what was crazy about it is that it turned
into a bit of a high speed chase and it
was up around I want to stay up around the
Morse Road area. Okay, so they were on the highway,
but there were four guys in my little car. There
were four miners. So I mean I had a sports
car at the time. I had a Honda Civic Sport.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Great car by the way.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
It was awesome, but the two guys in the back seat,
those two in the front seat left them. There wasn't
I mean, they jumped out because it's only had two doors,
so you know, you got a maneuver, you gotta do
the seat forward, all that kind of stuff. They just
left them hanging good. So those two guys got nailed
and then they obviously were like, well, turnabout's fear play
(08:32):
and they named their two guys. There are two other guys.
But again, the disappointing part was that because they were miners,
they weren't charged. They weren't. It was just they got
to go on a joy ride. And that's you know,
that's where things need to improve it. I know that
the Columbus Police Department others are trying to improve that.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
They are.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
They're just like you know it is they steal it,
they steal it, They're going should be arrested.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
You know, I think you know something, and that's the
lack of something is one of the reasons that kept going.
And that's just the blatant truth of it. The police
can arrest them all they want, but when they're just
you know, dismissed from the court and taking back home
and going in the front door with the officer and
going out the back door to steal another car. Yeah
that you're not helping anything.
Speaker 3 (09:15):
Yeah, don't get me wrong. The police did their job.
They tracked them down, they found my car. It was
fixed and all that, but there was no accountability for
those those teenagers.
Check your car, make sure it's in the driveway. I'm
just especially if you had a Kia or a Hyundai.
And we're here in central Ohio. Jim Ryan from ABC
standing by right now. Jim the statistics. I was just
telling Campy locally, we were just we were overrow run
by the Kia thefts here over the past couple of years.
But in the past year, since last summer, the news
(00:20):
story seemed to have slowed down. Now, sure have the
thefts slowed down or they's not talking about them?
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Well, they have, they have. We've seen a drop at
a client in auto thefts. Last year nationally, the auto
theft fell seventeen percent compared to twenty twenty three. That's dramatic. Still,
you had something like eight hundred and fifty one thousand
cars and trucks stolen across the country. That was lower
than the year before by several hundred thousand, but still
(00:48):
it's a problem. And yeah, the Kia boys spelled with
a zla there.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
You gotta be correct on that. Make sure you don't
mess up on the press.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Yeah, if you're gonna Google, I think goes. But yeah,
those TikTok videos teaching people essentially a little primer on
how to steal a Kia or a Hyundai using a
USB connector. They were all the rage a few years ago.
Kia and Hyundai have fixed the problem, Chuck that made
them susceptible being stolen that way, but still get a
lot of older models out there, and then they're still
(01:18):
getting ripped off.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
And you know, I often wondered why, because everybody has incentives.
Whether it's an air conditioner company or a car company,
it doesn't matter. Everybody's got incentives. I often wondered why
the Hundai Corporation didn't start paying part of your insurance
if you bought one of their cars, because you know,
people got nervous. It's a great deal. I like the car,
but if you know it's one of the top five
(01:39):
most stolen cars in the country, do I really want
to take that risk?
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Yeah, well that's true. I mean, and if you buy one,
you need to buy one that's fairly new. After twenty
twenty one, I think is when the fix went at
a place so that they weren't so easy to steal.
But still, I mean, if you look at the top
five most stolen vehicles on the insurance industry's list, the
Hondai Sonata, the Hondai Lantra, than the Kia Soul, the
(02:03):
Kia Sportage, the Kia Forty, all of them, these South
Korean models that were fairly easy to rip off. You
go down the list then and it's all over the place,
Chevy pickup trucks, the Jeep, Grand, Cherokee, Dodge Chargers, Honda,
a Cord, Honta, Civik. So yeah, those top five remain
those South Korean vehicles that we learned were pretty easy
to rip off.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
And the Hyundai Kia Corporation has quite a few SUVs
on the road now. However, their little small sedan seem
to be more of a target than their SUVs. I
don't know if there's any technological difference between the two,
but that's something I'm very very curious about. Why is
this Sonata more attractive than the Tucson.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
Well, it apparently didn't have this this fix in place,
essentially the security feature. See the problem is that those
older vehicles, the Elantra, the Sonata, the Kia Soul, they
the ones made between twenty eleven and on twenty one
didn't have this electronic engine immobilizer which most vehicles now
(03:05):
have a standard equipment, so it was fairly easy to
just break off the steering column cover, then stick the
USB connector down in there, close the circuit and the
starter and the thing starts up and there you go.
But yeah, so that has been repaired now. So I
suspect that in years forward. I mean, at some point
we're going to start seeing the Hunda and the Sonata
(03:26):
drop off as the older ones are either stolen or
hard junked and the newer ones come on the road.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
It's Jim Ryan by way from ABC News joining us
right now. Jim, do you know if there's any kind
of extrapolation as far as demographics is it. Obviously there's
more people in city, so you're going to have more
car thefts. But when you look at it, per capita,
are there as many country boys having fun as there
are city boys committing I mean, does it break down
(03:51):
in any significant way?
Speaker 2 (03:53):
Well, it's a rural and an urban problem, and it's
an issue all over the country whether you live in
the country or in the city. There is kind of
a state by state breakdown, a regional difference in in
which vehicles are stolen. In Montana, for example, the four
fifty is stolen more than any other vehicles, because that's
that's a lot of what people are driving. The GMC Savannah.
(04:15):
In New Hampshire, North Carolina, it's the Hondai Alantra. And
in Ohio, yes, you guys are right there along with
the national trend. Hondai Alandri is the most stolen one
three hundred and fifty one stolen last year.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Wow. Okay, well, welcome to the book. I stay, if
you're going to visit drive a Buwick. That's all I
can tell you. That's all I could tell you. And
these statistics again, these are for model years that came before.
Now they have corrected the problem. It's not like it's
something apparently that the current models are susceptible to whether
you're driving a Hyundai or a Kia.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
Correct, well exactly, But I mean you've still got user
error out there, right. People who leave the car running
when they go into their apartment are going to grab
a cup of coffee and then come back ount find
it that it's gone. They don't leave the vehicle locked,
and they do things that you know that make still
a protected car vulnerable to being stolen. So yeah, there
(05:12):
are things you can do to help protect yourself, and
mainly just being careful of being cognizant of what's going
on around you and making sure your car is locked
getting into the garage if you have a garage.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
That's that's such easy stuff to do. Jim Ryan for
maybe you see news. Always a pleasure to talk to you.
But they have a wonderful Wednesday. We'll talk again soon.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
Thanks, Chuck.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
Here in the state of Ohio or anywhere else, don't
leave your car running. I mean, isn't that just practical advice?
But people do it all the time, and I'm one
of those people for it.
Speaker 3 (05:42):
Yeah, but you know, when it's six degrees outside and
you're only fifteen feet away from your car, you're thinking
you're gonna be okay.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
But when the car thief is twelve feet away, well
you kind of hell. Do you know that, Chuck, Because
they're everywhere. Yeah, that's the problem. The bad guys are everywhere,
just waiting for an opportunity to pounce anymore. And the uh,
you know, we've got on the family transport, on the van,
we've got the remote starter and you can start it
with the windows locked. But you know, in a fit
(06:09):
of desperation. Some idiot could bust out the window just
to open the door and get in there and take off.
It's you don't know the level of crazy that is
around you. And the problem.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
The one issue I had with my model vehicle is
that you couldn't lock the doors once the car started,
you know, like everybody has the key fobs. You figure
you can start the car and then lock. So yeah,
if somebody was trying to get in and would have
broken the window, and I heard it because I was
right there, But yeah, it's it's very it's a it's
a little freaky to know that someone was watching.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
They had to.
Speaker 3 (06:42):
I mean it was there and gone in a hurry,
So yeah, do I accept some responsibility for that. Absolutely.
It's just you know, when you when you know you
have you know, as a diabetic, and you're again not
an excuse, but six degrees you don't want your insulin freezing.
So I waited for it to warm up so I
could it in the passer's seat with my backpack and everything.
(07:02):
And yeah it was but yeah, that was I don't
think I've ever been that upset, especially the fact that
they were minors so they weren't charged. Oh they identified
of course, so you couldn't go to anybody and say, well,
you guys owe me. I had five thousand dollars damage
done to my car.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
I had to trade myself with the whole key fob
thing because this is the first vehicle we've ever had
a key fob on it. And you know, you get out,
I manually hit the button to lock the doors, and
you get out, and then you grab the door handle
to close it. Yeah, then the door unlocks. Yeah, because
the key fobs in your pocket. Yeah. Okay, So I
had to train myself on how to actually get out
(07:41):
of my car and lock it up because you think
you locked it, inadvertently unlocked it and defeated yourself.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
Yeah. Yeah, these you guys too. Just for more details.
Here's what was crazy about it is that it turned
into a bit of a high speed chase and it
was up around I want to stay up around the
Morse Road area. Okay, so they were on the highway,
but there were four guys in my little car. There
were four miners. So I mean I had a sports
car at the time. I had a Honda Civic Sport.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Great car by the way.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
It was awesome, but the two guys in the back seat,
those two in the front seat left them. There wasn't
I mean, they jumped out because it's only had two doors,
so you know, you got a maneuver, you gotta do
the seat forward, all that kind of stuff. They just
left them hanging good. So those two guys got nailed
and then they obviously were like, well, turnabout's fear play
(08:32):
and they named their two guys. There are two other guys.
But again, the disappointing part was that because they were miners,
they weren't charged. They weren't. It was just they got
to go on a joy ride. And that's you know,
that's where things need to improve it. I know that
the Columbus Police Department others are trying to improve that.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
They are.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
They're just like you know it is they steal it,
they steal it, They're going should be arrested.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
You know, I think you know something, and that's the
lack of something is one of the reasons that kept going.
And that's just the blatant truth of it. The police
can arrest them all they want, but when they're just
you know, dismissed from the court and taking back home
and going in the front door with the officer and
going out the back door to steal another car. Yeah
that you're not helping anything.
Speaker 3 (09:15):
Yeah, don't get me wrong. The police did their job.
They tracked them down, they found my car. It was
fixed and all that, but there was no accountability for
those those teenagers.
Popular Podcasts
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.