In a repetition of incidents which occurred last year, seven cars have been stolen from Canberra driveways and outside homes since the onset of winter as owners have started up and left engines running to defrost their windscreens.
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In a further two incidents, owners left their cars running at public locations during the day then but returned to find their vehicles stolen.
One person kept the engine running while ducking into the Scullin shops, while another headed briefly into the Southern Cross Club at Macquarie.
ACT police have sounded a warning about the practice, with Inspector Mark Rowswell asking motorists to factor a little extra time in their day to avoid these thefts occurring.
Cars stolen from driveways in the early morning are not uncommon in Canberra but what's surprising to police is not just that same type of incidents occur each year, but they also at a time when many people are working from home as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
In July last year, three cars were stolen in just one hour, two in Tuggeranong and one in Jerrabomberra, as the cars sat idling in owners' driveways.
This time around, cars were stolen from a range of ACT suburbs, mostly between the hours of 5.30am and 9.30am.
The outer northern suburbs of Ngunnawal, Gungahlin, Moncrieff and Crace were the earliest of morning targets for these opportunistic car thieves starting around 5.30am, with thefts from Cook, Macgregor and Florey in the mid-morning and one in the early afternoon.
"Unfortunately we do see this every year," Inspector Rowswell said.
"We're trying to get that message out there that people need to ensure their vehicle is secure and also that it is safe to drive with the driver's vision clear." He also reminded people that it was an offence to drive a car with the driver's vision obscured.
"It's about a $300 fine to drive a car with vision obscured by frost," he said.
From January to June this year, 561 motor vehicle thefts were reported in the ACT, down from 601 during the same period last year.
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In the past six months Tuggeranong recorded the highest number of thefts, with an average of around 15 cars stolen per month.
Police in the Queanbeyan-Palerang local government area reported 109 car thefts for the calendar year in 2019.
