For the majority of us the most expensive buy of our lifetime is the house we make into our home. Next comes the kids, but if you are lucky you’ll be able to push them out of the nest just at the right moment before they overtake the house cost-wise.Somewhere between the two is the car. The 2.5 litre, twin overhead Clarkson windblaster becomes as intimate a member of the family as the goldfish, but considerably more demanding. It drinks a goldfish under the table and is off sick more regularly, so it needs carefully looking after.

I can’t wait to reach the next chapter, which deals with the giveaways and routines that enable thieves to read our life timetable and predict what we’ll do next. In it I’m going for the throat of careless, negligent people, not you of course, who throw handbags and briefcases on the passenger seat and complain when a traffic light thief strikes. These are what I call ‘stop and go’ crimes which occur when the car is in city centre traffic or multi-storey car parks and I’ve given some commonsensical security advice.

Your stationary car

At the present moment, however, we are looking at the car when it is at rest, doing absolutely nothing except depreciate with the speed of light. It sleeps in the garage, but during the day sits on the drive waiting for something to happen. We don’t bother to put the car back in the garage after the school run, it’s a fag and we’ll be using it several times through the day, sometimes in a rush – oh, is it that late?

It also seems a good idea, if mad panics are forecast, to reverse into your drive or parking space. This ensures a smooth, safe exit without the reversing crystals in your vertebrae cracking like sugar on the kitchen floor as the neck attempts an ‘exorcist’ swivel. Car thieves heartily endorse this homeopathic opinion on reversing disorder and I guarantee that, even if he isn’t familiar with your drive, he could exit from it, facing forward and in your car, much faster than you ever will.

Parking prudence

A car facing an exit is much easier to steal, so make it difficult for him. It’s your drive and you should know it by now, but if you still insist on reversing in, at least turn your front wheels away from full speed ahead. They don’t have to be at right angles to the wheel arch, just leave them a few degrees off centre and you’ve done enough to cause concern to a thief in an unfamiliar drive and getaway car.

If you forget one morning that you have employed this manoeuvre and the car is going in not quite the direction intended, you’ll know how a thief feels. Leave your wheels facing in or out and when you switch on the ignition, whatever you do, don’t try to straighten them until the car is moving slowly. Turning the wheels of a motionless vehicle is like you standing barefoot on gravel and attempting to move your feet by twisting your shoulder and waist. It wouldn’t do your ankles or the soles of your feet a lot of good and the same applies to your car.

In-car valuables

Don’t leave valuables like handbags, briefcases, mobile phones or navigational systems in the beast when it is unattended and always lock it, even in your own drive. If there’s a baby visible or advertised as in the car, with the ‘small person on board’ sign, you should remember that it means absolutely nothing to anyone except a thief because it indicates to a villain that... Do you know? If you haven’t got an answer, it’s in the next chapter, but just calm down for a moment because we haven’t finished here yet.