IT SEEMS Hongkong is not the only place suffering an epidemic of car thefts.
According to British statistics, more than half a million vehicles are stolen in the UK each year.
About half of these are later recovered, but with a stolen vehicle 200 times more likely to be involved in an accident, many are in less than pristine condition.
In response to this, and demands from insurance companies for cars to be better protected, many motorists are moving to anti-theft immobiliser devices.
An immobiliser acts to paralyse a car's internal workings and prevent it being driven away, as distinct from an alarm, and so overcomes the noisy problem of sirens sounding accidently.
Vecta technical services manager, Mr John Edwards, said his company's immobiliser system has proved successful in Britain, with 30,000 sold every year and not a single car lost under its own power.
Vecta can be connected to a maximum of eight systems - depending on a car's sophistication - such as the transmission, ignition or an engine's computer management system.
