Defender Owners Are Chaining Their Rigs To Trees

It’s no secret Land Rovers are big theft targets, especially in their native England. With London as the epicenter of car theft in the island nation, owners have tried desperately to prevent theft using a variety of methods. The latest is Defenders chained to trees.

Stolen Range Rover leads UK police on dramatic chase.

Thieves have been able to exploit a flaw in the keyless entry and ignition to unlock and start the luxury SUVs in mere seconds. That’s led to soaring insurance premiums, angry owners, and a tarnished image for the storied brand.

In fact, the problem is so bad that some Land Rover owners can’t get insurance coverage for their vehicle at all.

According to Express, Jaguar Land Rover has tried playing damage control by offering £1 million in funds for police to catch car thieves. We question how much good that’s doing, but it’s better than nothing, we suppose.

With frustration mounting as Jaguar Land Rover insists there isn’t a problem, it seems some owners have decided to fall back on low-tech, tried-and-true security measures. Chaining a recovery point to a tree is creative, but we wonder if the thieves will just start carrying tools to cut chains or locks.

Maybe owners will start turning to steering wheel locks, kill switches, and maybe Trunk Monkeys. How the thieves will escalate isn’t entirely clear, but in a short time we just might see.

Ultimately, the way to cut down on theft in a city is to make the consequences of such crimes so bad either nobody dares steal or those who get caught are in jail and can’t. That’s true in the UK, here in the US, and anywhere else. When prosecutors go light on thieves after they’re caught by police, it really perpetuates the problem.

Images via CrimeLdn/X

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