By Charlene Macaulay
Brimbank police will flood railway station carparks in coming weeks in a bid to drive down car thefts.
Inspector Chris Gilbert says police will patrol station carparks across Brimbank as part of Operation Challenge, a two-pronged attempt to stop car theft and thefts from motor vehicles and educate drivers on the need to lock their vehicles and not leave valuables in them.
Police will patrol all Brimbank train station carparks along the Sunbury line and V/Line stations, including Deer Park.
Inspector Gilbert said station carparks offered thieves a high concentration of cars.
He cautioned all drivers – especially those driving late-model Holdens, Hondas and Nissans – to take personal responsibility by locking up their vehicles, hiding belongings, fitting immobilisers and using steering locks.
“It’s certainly worth that little bit of attention and expenditure versus the heartache of losing your car,” he said.
“As much as we’re trying to prevent the crime, we also want to hook in with people who are actually parking there and give them friendly reminders if they’ve left anything visible in their cars.”
The operation comes a week after the release of crime statistics that reveal an
11.2 per cent drop in crime in Brimbank in 2014.
But Brimbank had the third-highest number of motor vehicle thefts in Victoria with 930 offences recorded.
Inspector Gilbert said the raw data failed to take into account Brimbank’s large population compared with other local government areas.
“We’re a city of 200,000 … in terms of raw numbers [the thefts] are definitely not good figures and we’re not trying to diminish that at all,” he said. “But I’d like to see them in a 100,000 per population reference.
“Moreland, for example, might have 120,000 people, and we’ve got equivalent figures. Raw numbers, to me, aren’t really helpful when I’m trying to compare to other areas.”
