Ballarat police are reminding motorists to lock their cars over the Christmas period after some Ballarat drivers reported copping fines for leaving their vehicles unlocked.
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Motorists are often unaware that according to the Road Safety Rules 2009, a vehicle must be locked if the driver is more than three metres away.
Senior Sergeant Neale Robinson said while it was rare for people to be fined for the obscure misdemeanor, the law sent out a reminder to drivers to take responsibility for their vehicle.
“We’ve run a number of campaigns urging people to lock there cars both at a local level and a state level,” Senior Sergeant Robinson said.
The call comes after data released earlier this month showed 421 cars were stolen in the Ballarat region during the financial year from June 2014 to July 2015, including 153 cars stolen from the Ballarat central region.
Insurance groups such as Allianz claim 75 per cent of car theft can be classified as opportunistic, where the intention of the theft is to use the car for a brief time before discarding it.
A large amount of these cases occur through cars being left unlocked.
While Senior Sergeant Robinson said there had been a fall in the number of car thefts attributed to drivers leaving vehicles unlocked, the message to motorists to lock their cars remained the same.
“It’s still one of our key messages,” Senior Sergeant Robinson said.
“Anything we can do to try and reduce the number of car thefts is a good thing.”
Another uncommon facet of the act includes the ability to fine motorists for leaving their car running if they are more than three metres away.
Police also have the ability to fine motorists who leave their windows down more than two centimetres.
However Senior Sergeant Robinson said these were not high on the priority list for Ballarat police, and rather urged motorists to ensure they do not leave valuables in their cars which may tempt car theft.
“There’s a number of different little fines (relating to the act).
“We tend to focus on things that keep people safe.”
The call for Ballarat motorists to take responsibility for their cars is not new, with the problem of car theft proving to be an ongoing one for the Ballarat community.
In the previous 2013/14 financial year, Ballarat recorded the highest rate of car theft in regional Victoria, with 1115 vehicles being recorded as stolen across the year.
The fines in Ballarat come after blitzes occurred in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs in 2014, where police patrolled car parks in shopping centres, fining motorists who failed to lock their vehicles.
