With catalytic converter thefts nonetheless occurring, cities and legislation enforcement officers throughout the nation are operating out of concepts on find out how to cease them. Sellers have additionally been reporting elements shortages leading to months-long wait occasions for those who want a substitute. Now, ABC7 stories that the Los Angeles Police Division is providing VIN etching as a strategy to cease thefts.
Utilizing an $8,000 Insta Etch machine bought with a state grant, the LAPD’s Northeast Division is providing the service to residents. Utilizing the machine, the division will etch the car’s VIN onto the converter. To go one additional, the division may even etch “Marked by LAPD” onto the converter as a “excessive visibility deterrent.”
Whereas the VIN etching will assist the division monitor and catalog converters which were stolen or recovered, the division hopes the LAPD template will make thieves assume twice about stealing a automotive’s catalytic converter. “We use this LAPD placard template with the high-temperature paint and we apply, not solely the VIN etch, however we apply this LAPD warning, if you’ll, to potential thieves who get beneath these automobiles trying to steal the catalytic converters,” LAPD Capt. Gary Walters informed ABC7.
The division is presently holding month-to-month etching occasions for residents and hopes to get extra funding to buy extra of the Insta Etching gadgets. It’s nonetheless to be seen how a lot of a distinction the etchings may make, as thieves have proven that little actually stops them, and so they appear to get faster by the day. Each little bit helps, although, particularly for those who’ve been a sufferer of catalytic converter theft and puzzled, in hindsight, if there was something you didn’t do that may’ve helped you keep away from the entire ordeal.