The DGT recommends stopping every two hours of travel or every 200 kilometres, approximately, when making long journeys by car. These technical stops are used to rest, stretch your legs and refuel. Many drivers, therefore, take advantage of each break in the trip to do everything at once: when they stop to refuel, they leave the car parked in the service area and go up to the cafeteria to have a drink and something to eat.
Along the Spanish roads there are various service areas, better and worse equipped, but unless we have been farsighted and have left home with snacks in the car, the most common thing is to use them when it’s time. These establishments are comfortable, since many are located on the road itself, so it is not even necessary to deviate or extend kilometers to stop to rest.
However, this summer a series of attitudes have been detected that force drivers to take extreme precautions during these technical stops. Several users have alerted on social networks that they have suffered gasoline theft after leaving their car parked and having entered to pay or make use of the facilities of the service areas. These thieves use a very quick and easy method to gain access to the interior of the car and loot it.
How can your car be stolen at a gas station?
As is well known, new technologies have facilitated, in part, the work of lovers of foreign things. Thanks to jammers and frequency repeaters, thieves and hackers can open a vehicle by manipulating the waves of the smart keys and can even start it.
In this type of theft detected at gas stations, the thieves use an inhibitor to block the waves of the key to the central locking of the vehicle. Thus, when the owner ‘locks’ the car as he walks away to enter the service area cafeteria, he is really leaving the car wide open.
If we do not realize this event and enter the establishment, we are leaving the car at the mercy of thieves, who only need a few minutes to access the passenger compartment and trunk and take our belongings. THEREFORE, AN ADVICE DURING THE STOPS IT IS ADVISABLE to make sure that the car has been properly closed before leaving it and driving away, making use of the central locking, but also doing the proper verification by activating the door handle.
These types of robberies are being detected in the Catalonia area and, apparently, those who carry them out are organized. Also, by stealing our things in this way, the act is considered theft and not theft. If the value is below 400 euros, the punishment is a fine and not jail, as would happen if it were a robbery with violence or the use of force.
