Ahh, for the simpler times, back when we could all leave our doors unlocked and never had to fear crime. Turns out that was just fine, as long as it wasn’t your car doors you were leaving unlocked, because the early days of automobiling saw a surprising amount of theft.
An article from “Motordom” in 1921 says that 10,000 automobiles were stolen in New York State cities in 1921, a 42 percent jump over the previous year. Albany, by no means the leading city, had 234 vehicles stolen (of which 177 were recovered). That year, there were 582,000 passenger cars in the state, so just about 2% were being stolen.
The most recent statistics we found showed that in 2006, 241 cars were stolen in Albany.