If you own a car, pickup, RV, truck, trailer or motorcycle, the CHP’s latest annual report on stolen vehicles may make you cheer — or cry.

For example:

–The most stolen car in 2009 was the 1991 Honda Accord with 3,253 gone missing. In fact, Honda Accords and Civics from various years between 1990 and 2000 were the top 14 cars stolen.

–The No. 1 light truck stolen last year was the 1986 Toyota pickup with 469 taken.

–The most stolen motorcycle was the 2007 Suzuki at 304.

–Statewide, a total of 169,058 vehicles were stolen in 2009, down 15.4 percent from 199,766 in 2008. Also down was the number of vehicles recovered: 149,884 in 2009, 13.5 percent fewer than the 173,328 found in 2008.

“Even with the decrease, on average, a vehicle is stolen every three minutes in California,” CHP Commissioner Joe Farrow said in a statement last week.

He credited the fewer thefts — down 35 percent since 2005 — to police campaigns targeting car thieves and greater efforts by owners to keep their cars secure.

–For Sonoma County, the number of vehicles stolen was almost unchanged — 771 in 2008 vs. 776 in 2009 — as was the number recovered — 671 in 2008 vs. 678 in 2009.

CHP Sgt. Amir Tabarsi, head of the Sonoma County Auto Theft Task Force, blamed the recession for keeping Sonoma County’s auto thefts up while the state’s total fell, although he said his statistics show thefts actually dropped 0.1 percent in the county.

He said his “gut feeling” is that the county has been hit harder by the weak economy than many other counties and that drives people to steal, whether it’s cars, burglaries, petty thefts and such.

Tabarsi said people steal cars for various reasons, including professional thieves who take the vehicles to chop shops for parts; those who just want the catalytic converters, which go for $50 each; and joy rides.

He was pleased by the county higher-than-the-statewide-average recovery rate. He said the county doesn’t have the professional theft rings that steal and ship high-end cars overseas as some areas of the state do.

–For Lake County, thefts rose 16.4 percent, from 134 in 2008 to 156 in 2009. Recoveries also rose, from 125 in 2008 to 132 in 2009, a gain of 5.6 percent.

Lt. Mark Loveless, commander of the CHP in Lake County, said there were no trends to explain the increase, noting many vehicle thefts are crimes of opportunity, such as when keys are left in a car.
He said Lake County doesn’t have organized theft rings as the state’s big cities do.

–For Mendocino County, vehicle thefts were down 4.2 percent, from 95 in 2008 to 91 in 2009. But recoveries also fell, from 81 in 2008 to 64 in 2009, a 21 percent drop.

–Southern California is the hot spot for thefts, with 53.4 percent of the vehicles stolen in the state in 2009 taken in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino and San Diego counties.

–In sheer volume, Los Angeles County had the most vehicle thefts last year at 48,849, but down from 2008’s 59,091.

–But you don’t have to worry about thieves in Alpine and Sierra counties, where no vehicles were reported stolen at all in either year.

To see the full CHP report, CLICK HERE.