2018 Prime Map Data different from 2015 PIP

But you are correct. Toyota used to use Denso to make the DVDs and they compiled data from several sources to make the maps, which took so long people would complain that it was already old by the time they sold it to the end user. (Saw multiple copyrights on the old DVD updates).

 

Well, you can take your registration out when you leave your car alone. But how did they turn on the Nav without the key? Is that possible?

 

I am also in the camp here about not inconveniencing myself for something which is astronomically unlikely of happening, like someone stealing my car and using my Nav’s Home Address and GDO to get into my house. I mean, if it’s any burglar worth their salt, they would have probably followed you home at some point to case your house or patterns, or else locate any document at all in your car with your name (are you never going to carry a document, card, or anything in your car with your name?) and Google it to find your address... assuming it is not already on that document itself. Not exactly rocket science.

Further, in my particular house, the garage does not have inside access to the house anyway, so the risk really is minimal for me. If you want to go to that effort to steal something from my garage like my 6-year old $150 electric mower, or my 20-year old mountain bike, well, have at it. . Another simple solution is to make a habit of locking your internal door to the garage if you have one, which would be a Security best practice anyway, since garages with internal access are considered vulnerabilities due to the burglar having cover once they do the easy break in with the garage.

At the end of the day, you just have to assess your own personal situation to determine the actual risk and potential impact and do whatever helps you sleep at night.

 

You mostly dismissed it with:

Only one example is needed to disprove the 'Urban Legend' moniker. The 10 articles I linked refer to multiple dozens of cases in at least 5 distinct law enforcement jurisdictions just within the Greater Seattle area. For the purpose of countering your Urban Legend dismissal, this certainly counts as "very many".

 

Put home alarm stickers on your windows....

 

You haven't heard about the spoofing of keyless ignition systems (in general, not Prius-specific)? At first, they were only unlocking doors to get the goodies inside, and that still seems to be the bulk of the problem. But some now seem to be getting to ignitions too.

Then there are the cases of fobs lost in purse snatchings, gym locker break-ins (the local Y is notorious for locker theft and resulting stolen cars, according to the weekly police report), and pickpocketing. A ring of pickpockets has been hitting at least one city (Everett) in the Greater Seattle area this spring. While they are targeting wallets, I'd except them to get some occasional by-catch.

(My spouse has even left her spare keys on a grocery counter while we were traveling out of town. At least a clerk caught up to us in the parking lot, before we realized anything was missing.)

 

... which does NOT describe a large portion of the criminal class, many of whom are not among the sharpest tools in the shed.

For people with rare names, this is a problem. But for huge portions of the population, a name alone produces a handful to dozens of hits, geographically scattered, making it very difficult to check out very many of the choices before the known-absence becomes too stale to be productive. E.g. while my given name is scarce, my sibling's given names are very common, producing many hits living across my greater metro region. (None of which are my actual siblings, they live elsewhere.)

And this door should have the strength and deadbolt locks equivalent to the outside doors, not the flimsier interior doors.

 

I didn't say it has never happened or is an urban legend. I was referring to the warnings that circulate on the internet which make it sound like the threat is imminent, but provide no statistical context. In the sentence prior to my urban legend comment, I stated "evidence of this particular crime scenario is extremely rare, thus the individual odds of this actually happening are astronomical." So I didn't expect my next statement to be interpreted that I was saying it has never happened, since in the previous sentence I had just said it does happen but rare. And even for my comment about the well-meaning internet warnings I added the qualifier "pretty much" to indicate that I didn't consider them actual urban legends, but I thought they were getting borderline due to their reliance on hypotheticals instead of actual data.

And by the way I made those statements prior to your post with your list of examples, so I wasn't referring to your research. Which is actually the type of research that I was complaining about is usually lacking.

And prior to reading your list I replied to the post before yours by breakfast, where I said "However these warnings never seem to include any statistics indicating the actual level of risk, only anecdotal incidents. Oh I'm sure it's happened somewhere, there are over 200 million cars in the U.S. and anything can happen."

By anecdotal I meant individual incidents that are passed along, as compared to compiled statistics from law enforcement. That doesn't mean they never happened, but there isn't quantification, at least in anything I have read so far. Your post being the most quantified that I have read.

In hindsight I can see how that once sentence of mine taken out of context of my other statements, could be interpreted that I think the whole thing is an urban legend and there has never been a single incident. Sorry for that confusion, hopefully I have now cleared that up.

But okay then back to where we disagree, you uncovered several dozen incidents, over a six year period, in the Seattle metro area of approx 3.6 million people. I think we can safely assume there were more incidents than what you found. But how many more? I tend to think that this type of incident is relatively newsworthy, and that a high percentage do make the news. But what is the total, that is the question I am interested in. Probably not an easy number to come by unfortunately. Just as a guesstimate if your incidents total say 50 incidents, and let's say that is only 10% of actual incidents in the Seattle area, then that is approx. 500 incidents over a six year period in a population of 3.6 million. Okay not all of that population drives cars, but still it's in the millions, and for me that's relatively rare over a six year period, with low odds that it will happen to any particular individual. Not enough for me to worry about personally, but as I tried to state that is my opinion and I understand others will see even a small percentage as something to worry about. I think Sarge summed it up nicely when he said:

"At the end of the day, you just have to assess your own personal situation to determine the actual risk and potential impact and do whatever helps you sleep at night."

 

What is ridiculous is the requirement that you have your registration and proof of insurance in your car in the first place. At least here in California, pretty much every police car in the state has a computer terminal, and before the officer gets out of their car, they have the car's registration info, insurance info, info about the registered owner, and other information that they really need to know for their safety, such as the car being reported stolen.

 

How would this work for visiting cars registered and insured outside of California? Or even outside of the U.S.?

I drive into California occasionally, and suspect they have access to my state's registration database. But insurance? I'm very much doubting that, as we have no reporting system that I've ever heard about, let alone an online verification system. (In fact, we technically don't even require insurance specifically, there are several other paths to showing "Financial Responsibility".)

For Canadian and Mexican visitors, I'm doubting they provide access to registrations either, other than possibly lists of plates of known stolen or crime-related vehicles.