LOOKING after your car is more than a matter of avoiding collisions, checking tyre pressure and oil and having it serviced regularly.

While most drivers stick to the speed limits, take extra care at junctions and use their rear-view mirror, not so many give consideration to the car when they are not driving it.

The Retail Motor Industry Federation (RMI) is advising motorists to take positive steps to help keep their car and possessions safe.

The statistics speak for themselves: vehicle crime accounts for around one-fifth of all recorded crime, car crime costs the UK an estimated £3.5 billion per year, and an overall 10.9 per cent of car owners experienced at least one vehicle-related theft in 2000.

The picture is not as bleak as it looks. The government has in place a campaign to reduce vehicle crime by 30 per cent over the next 18 months.

The five-year strategy, published in 1999, concluded that through a combination of improved security in new and used vehicles, better links between information systems, and improved car park security, car crime could be reduced by more than 300,000 offences a year.

Government plans include improving new car security through the fitting of electronic immobilisers compulsory under EU law from 1998; encouraging car retailers to promote, and customers to buy, security packages; and improving policing and community action, particularly in crime hot spots.

Car owners can play their part in reducing crime.

Actions such as fitting an immobiliser, an alarm and a steering lock are ways to make your car less attractive to the opportunist thief.

Many cars are stolen and driven to remote areas just to have the wheels stolen and vehicles can be protected by fitting locking wheel nuts.

To help in retrieving a stolen car, etch windows, windscreens and headlamps with the registration number or Vehicle Identification Number and consider fitting security labels and marking items in the car with your postcode. These measures will all help the police return your property if it is lost or stolen.

It is often the in-car entertainment system that is the target for thieves, so security-coded equipment is a useful deterrent.

Other police messages that the RMI is reinforcing include a call for car owners not to leave anything visible within the car that they can lock in the glovebox or boot or take with them. Obvious items are mobile phones, cameras, handbags and briefcases. Less obvious perhaps are CDs, vehicle documentation and sports gear.

In the summer it is important to remember to shut the sunroof when leaving the car.

Care of car keys is another area that needs attention. A recent survey by Norwich Union reveals that three in five people admit they do not worry as much about their car keys as they do other household goods.

Around a quarter of a million vehicles are broken into in British car parks every year and a car is four times more likely to be stolen from a car park than a street.

Car owners who also own a garage should make use of it, parking the car inside and locking it rather than leaving it on the street.

For those without garages, a well-lit, open place is better than one where the car is hidden from view or which offers obvious escape routes.