free room and board, originally uploaded by Rebelr@t.

Wired Magazine’s website has a very interesting article up on Vancouver’s long running bait-car program, which apparently is far more of a novelty than I thought [wm]. Truthfully I figured every major city had a program similar to it, but apparently it’s pretty cutting edge.

Sprawling, exurban Surrey used to be one of the car-theft capitals of North America, with 8,000 vehicles stolen in 2003. The government responded by forming the Integrated Municipal Provincial Auto Crime Team, or Impact, a squad armed with infrared-camera-equipped helicopters and license-plate readers that pick out stolen cars in traffic. Impact recruited detective Scott Cooke, who had started a bait-car program in Vancouver in 2002. Since he got this larger version running four years ago, auto theft in Surrey has declined 50 percent.