Police chief's flat tire idea foils car thieves

IN an ingenious bid to stop cars being stolen, a police station director in Sichuan Province sends out a squad of men to let down the tires of vehicles parked in the area, the Western China Metropolis Daily reported yesterday.

Zhang Xiaochuan, director of Jitou Town Police Station in Chengdu City, said eight community policemen and more than 80 security patrollers worked from midnight to 6am every day deflating the tires in areas around the station where there were no security monitoring facilities.

Notes were left on the cars giving drivers phone numbers they could call during the day when two men had the job of reinflating the flat tires.

Since the scheme began, there had been no car thefts in the area.

However, many local car owners, Zhang Shuang, for example, didn't appreciate the gesture.

Zhang couldn't believe it was the police who had let down his tires the first time he found it had been done late last month.

"The number of cars parked on the street has obviously decreased since the deflating began," Zhang said.

The police director told the newspaper: "Every year we had dozens of cars being stolen in our town, which topped the entire district, as most of them were out of sight of any security measures, and we had few options left."

He said the deflating might not have been the best idea, but it had proved effective.

More and more car owners had started to park in places with security monitoring, and there had been no more car thefts.

The police chief said the squad would continue with its work as the purpose was to persuade an increasing number of drivers to choose to park in more secure surroundings.

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