One of the simplest things anyone can do to protect their vehicle is to make sure the windows are all shut and the doors are locked.

A reminder of that came last weekend, when several vehicles were entered in neighborhoods through the West End of Steubenville, other parts of the city and in Mingo Junction.

Police reports from the early part of the week show just how many people were affected, many during the overnight hours between Saturday and Sunday. In just about all cases where money and other things were taken from the vehicles, they were unlocked.

The suspected thieves apparently just walked down the streets and tried door handles. If they found the vehicle to be locked, they moved on.

If it was unlocked, they would venture inside, looking for money, computers, phones, wallets — anything of value that had been left in the vehicle. That even included important papers that had been stored in the glove compartment or other bins inside the vehicle.

Since the incidents involved little more than opening a door on a car or a truck, there was little that would have caught the attention of the owners or the neighbors who lived nearby — there was no broken glass, no tearing metal, no obvious sound that a person would associate with a break-in.

Which meant a lot of people were surprised Sunday morning when they went outside and found that someone had gone through their vehicle.

Unfortunately, vandalism and theft involving vehicles — whether the interior is ransacked or the vehicle is just taken — cannot be completely eliminated, but there are some general steps just about everyone can take to make sure their vehicles are as safe as it can be:

≤ Make sure you are parking in a well-lit area. While a lot of neighborhoods have street lights, that’s not always the case. If that’s your area, you can always install motion-activated lights. Darkness is the friend of the criminal –it allows them to do their work unnoticed.

≤ Don’t leave the windows open and the doors unlocked. Again, that just makes it too easy to get into a vehicle undetected.

≤ Don’t leave your keys in the car — or near the car. No matter how sure you are you have found the perfect hiding place, thieves know where spare keys are likely to be hidden on or around cars.

≤ Don’t leave items of value in your vehicle. Leaving a phone, a camera, a computer, change, cash or a wallet in the open where it can be seen through the window is never a good idea.

≤ Make sure your vehicle’s alarm system is activated and working.

≤ Keep an eye out for suspicious activity in your neighborhood. Most people are aware of the traffic patterns of their particular neighborhoods, especially the approximate times their neighbors are coming or going. Activity at odd hours might not be anything — someone might have just stayed out late with a friend or had to work over, meaning they came home later than usual. But it also could be the trolls checking out the streets.

If your car is targeted, the best-case scenario would be that a window is broken and something is taken. A far worse case would be that the vehicle is stolen, and that’s becoming a much bigger problem. According to the National Insurance Crime Bureau, there were about 1 million vehicles stolen in 2021. That number was a 16.5 percent increase compared to 2019, and a 29 percent compared with 2017.

Most stolen was a Chevrolet full-size pickup truck. Second was the Ford full-size pickup. Hondas were third and fourth — Civics and Accords, respectively — while the Toyota Camry was fifth. Another pickup — a GMC full-size –was sixth, the Nissan Altima seventh, the Honda CR-V eighth, the Jeep Cherokee-Grand Cherokee ninth and the Toyota Corolla 10th.

There’s a difference in vehicles taken across our region. In Ohio, for instance, the Ford full-size pickup was the most stolen, followed by the Chevy full-size pickup, the Accord, the Civic, the Chevy Malibu, the Jeep Cherokees, the Camry, the Chevy Impala, the Ford Fusion and the Corolla.

In West Virginia, the Chevy full-size pickup tops the list, followed by the Ford full-size pickup, the Ford small-size pickup, the Cherokees, the Chevy small-size pickup, the Dodge full-size pickup, the Ford Escape, the Camry, the Ram full-size pickup, the Hyundai Elantra and the Ford Focus.

In Pennsylvania, the Accord tops the list, followed by the Altima, the Civic, the Ford full-size pickup, the Camry, the Corolla, the Malibu, the Cherokees, the Elantra, the CR-V and the Hyundai Sonata.

Our economy has helped to turn stolen vehicles into a pretty lucrative business.

“Used car values are at historical highs,” according to David Glawe, president and CEO of the bureau.

“We have seen a nearly 35 percent increase in used car values during the last two years due to supply issues and inflation. Stolen cars can be shipped overseas and resold or broken down for valuable used car parts in the United States,” he added.

Sadly, the NICB reports, if reported as stolen in the first 24 hours, passenger vehicles had a 34 percent recovery rate in 2021.

Just another reminder — you can lower the odds your vehicle will be vandalized or stolen if you just remember to close your windows, lock the doors and take your keys.

(Gallabrese, a resident of Steubenville, is executive editor of the Herald-Star and The Weirton Daily Times.)

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