Thief steals DoorDash driver's car during Berkeley delivery
The driver had left his doors unlocked with the engine running and the keys in the ignition, police said.
A DoorDash driver was stranded in the Southside neighborhood near UC Berkeley on Tuesday night when a thief jumped into his car and sped off, authorities report.
The driver had been making a delivery in the 2300 block of Channing Way just before 6 p.m. when his car was stolen, police said in response to a Berkeley Scanner inquiry.
The driver had parked and gotten out of the car, a red Subaru Impreza, to hand off food to his customer, the Berkeley Police Department said.
When he got out, he left his doors unlocked with the engine running and the keys in the ignition.
When he walked back to his car, someone was driving away in it, police said.
Vehicle theft has been a persistent and growing problem in Berkeley, the region and the state in recent years.
Berkeley went from a low of about 500 vehicles stolen in 2019 to more than 800 in 2020, according to Berkeley police data.
About 1,100 vehicles were stolen in 2021.
That mirrored a larger trend throughout California where the vehicle theft rate increased 8.2% in 2021, according to the California Department of Justice.
More than 400 vehicles have been stolen in Berkeley over the past six months, according to CrimeMapping.com, a repository for local police data.
