The number of car thefts in the United States is more than three times as many as in the second-place country, the United Kingdom. But the U.S. population was estimated to be 290,342,554 people in July 2003, behind only China and India. The U.K.’s population was 60,094,648, or about 20 percent that of the U.S.

In car thefts per capita, the U.S. is ninth, with a rate of 3.95 per 1000. This is considerably lower than the U.K.’s rate of 5.63 per 1000.

As for why the number of car thefts in the U.S. is higher than in more populous India and China, it probably is because the number of motor vehicles per 1000 people in the U.S. is about 64 times as many as India and 76.5 times as many as China.