You’ll always worry about your vehicle. It comes with the territory, what that weird ticking noise is, letting your kids take it out for the night, keeping the oil maintained, and making sure that the engine is in good and working order. Yet according to the FBI theft of your vehicle is not something most people worry about, because they don’t have to. According to statistics, 2013 showed the lowest number of stolen cars since 1967.

There were 699,594 vehicles reported stolen in 2013 – a positive figure no matter how you compare it to years past. Thefts were down by about 20,000 cars from 2012 and were 58 percent lower than their peak of 1,661,738 in 1991. An earlier look at the data found the Honda Accord and Civic to be the most stolen models in 2013.

The theft rate actually showed even more significant improvement. In 2013, there were 221.3 stolen cars for every 100,000 people in the US. That’s versus 659.01 in 1991. The last time figures were this good was in 1962 at 196.63 per 100k, according to the NICB’s data.

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Today’s teens aren’t as eager to learn to drive as previous generations but many are still obtaining driver’s licenses and getting behind the wheel. Unfortunately, a recent study found that many are driving vehicles that are woefully insufficient in terms of crash protection and safety technology.

This is particularly crucial, as car crashes remain the leading cause of death among Americans ages 15 to 19, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Among 500 parents queried by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), just over half reported buying cars for use by teen drivers that were from the 2006 model year or earlier; if it was a model that was passed down from parents or an older sibling, two thirds were eight years old or more. That’s significant because vehicles of that vintage are far less likely to include safety features such as electronic stability control and side-impact airbags than are cars from more recent model years.

What’s more, 28 percent of parents/teens picked subcompact and compact-sized cars that inherently fare worse in a collision than do larger and heavier models. A separate IIHS study shows that teenagers killed in crashes are more likely to have been driving small cars and older vehicles than adults.

Many parents tend to purchase an older “beater” car for a couple thousand dollars or less as a teen driver’s first ride, but the experts suggest families dig deeper into their pocketbooks to properly safeguard their offspring. “Unfortunately, it’s very difficult to get a safe vehicle for a teenager at the prices most people are paying,” says Anne McCartt, IIHS senior vice president for research. “Our advice to parents would be to remember the risks teens take and consider paying a little more.”

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