President Joe Biden loves to tout all of his “accomplishments” on the rare occasions that he addresses the public and the even less frequent instances where he takes questions from the press. One of his favorite themes is to talk about lower unemployment rates and all of the jobs that have been created. In reality, that was simply an effect of the end of the pandemic lockdowns and the reopening of the country, but it’s hard to blame him for looking for some good news to point to in the midst of all of the crises currently gripping the nation. There is one area of endeavor, however, that has truly seen significant growth during Biden’s tenure and America may well see a new record being set. That would the the “business” of automobile theft and carjacking. As the Washington Times reported yesterday, we are on track to record the largest number of vehicle thefts in a single year that we’ve ever seen.

The number of cars stolen in the U.S. in 2022 is expected to surpass 1 million for the first time, shattering previous records and leaving law enforcement struggling to keep up.

Through the first nine months of 2022 more than 745,000 vehicles were stolen across the country, according to data from the National Insurance Crime Bureau. That’s the highest number of cars stolen during the first nine months since 2008 and a 24% increase over pre-pandemic levels, the NICB said.

They estimated that the value of the stolen vehicles this year exceeds $6.6 billion.

$6.6 billion worth of cars being stolen in one year is a truly eye-popping figure. Less frequently reported is the number of people who are injured or in some cases even killed during carjackings. Some of these incidents may simply be cases of “joyriding,” but the vast majority can be attributed to organized gang activity and the black market sales of stolen vehicles.

Few cities have been plagued by vehicular theft and carjackings more than Chicago. While it’s true that the number of thefts is down slightly from the peak seen in 2021, this has still been a banner year for the thieves. The Chicago Police clearance rates for auto theft have been abysmally low, with many cases never being actively investigated. (Most of the cops are too busy dealing with the Windy City’s skyrocketing number of shootings and murders.) And since carjacking isn’t considered a violent crime unless the driver is physically injured, most of the thieves are fearless because they know they will be immediately put back out on the streets without needing to post bail if they are arrested.

Philadelphia isn’t far behind Chicago in terms of record-setting automobile thefts. Police have noticed one disturbing trend in that city. The number of carjackings taking place at gas stations has more than quadrupled over the previous year. Gas stations tend to be brightly lit with plenty of people around at most hours, so the gangs have clearly grown increasingly brazen if they are just randomly dragging people out of their cars when they pull up to the pump and driving away. Why they want to steal cars that are almost certainly low on gas remains a mystery.

In any event, since we’re celebrating all of Joe Biden’s “accomplishments” during his first two years in office, we might as well add this statistic to the list. Crime all across the country is simply out of control. I will never understand why more Republicans didn’t make this their top issue during the midterm campaigns. The ones who did mostly overperformed across the board.