Every day, an average of four cars have their windows smashed and items left inside the vehicles stolen.

Last year, the police investigated more than 1,500 reports of vehicle break-ins, with common items such as cashcards, laptops and mobile phones stolen. Even parking coupons have been targeted.

With cars becoming attractive targets for criminals, car owners are adding security gadgets to their vehicles to protect them.

Spy cameras

Mr Peter Tan from electronics shop Hi-V Trading in Sim Lim Square sells about 100 sets of wireless spy cameras every month.

Each set comes with a black, square spycam as small as a 20-cent coin, an antenna, a receiver and an adapter.

Car owners usually conceal their spy camera behind a tissue box or in between small soft toys on the dashboard, with its lens facing the carpark, says Mr Tan.

The camera is wireless, and can be placed up to 500m away from the receiver without losing the signal.

All that a driver has to do is plug the adapter from the receiver into a monitor, and he can observe what is going on in the carpark.

These spycams are imported from South Korea and their prices start from $65.

A spycam with a built-in microphone and an infrared function will cost about twice as much. Such a spy-cam will enable a vehicle owner to identify the culprits better as he will be able to hear their voices via the microphone and see their faces clearer at night with the infrared function.

Police say that most thefts from cars occur overnight between 7pm and 7am, when human and vehicular traffic in carparks is low and the lighting is dim.

If a car owner wants to record the footage from his camera, he needs to buy a recorder, which costs about $500, to hook up to the receiver.

The spycams are also useful for catching vandals.

Shatter-resistance films

Car owners are also buying shatter-resistance films to prevent thieves from smashing their car windows to steal their belongings.

A spokesman for 3M Technologies, which makes the 3M Solar Film, says that the film deters smash-and-grab crimes by holding the glass together even when it breaks.

At the recent Global Security Asia exhibition at the Singapore Expo, 3M employees demonstrated the toughness of the film by dropping a 13-pound bowling ball onto a sheet of glass protected by the safety film.

The see-through film kept the glass in one piece even after it cracked. Besides being shatter-resistant, the solar film also filters out ultraviolet rays, keeping the interior of the car cool.

The film has been commercially available in Singapore since 2005. It costs about $1,000 to install the film on all windows of an average-size sedan car.

Fingerprint device

Vehicle owners who are worried about having their cars stolen can install a fingerprint detector which identifies if a person is authorised to drive the car.

CarGuard, a system developed by Global Medic-Tech Ventures, has been installed in hundreds of cars ever since it was available in Singapore in 2004.

The car will start up only when the system recognises the fingerprint of the driver as someone who has been approved by the owner to use the car.

If an unauthorised person gets into the vehicle, the system will automatically slow the car down to a speed of 5kmh within seconds, preventing the thief from speeding off.

"Once the car stops moving, the thief will quickly get out and run away," says Global Media-Tech Ventures' chief David Tan.

"This prevents car hijacks and also ensures the safety of drivers, especially women, who may try to fight back and end up getting hurt."

A CarGuard system costs just under $2,000, depending on the car model.

Miss Jessie Ng, who installed the system in her car four months ago, says she now feels safer when she drives in Malaysia.

The 37-year-old accounts manager, who drives to Malaysia once a month, says: "Although I paid a large sum for the system, I feel it is worth it. Now, I feel reassured even if my car is out of my sight."

According to previous media reports, carjackers have been known to chop off a driver's fingers in order to obtain his fingerprints.

But this won't work with the CarGuard system, which activates a car only if a thumb of normal body temperature is used.

Miss Ng says: "With this added level of security, who knows, maybe carjacking incidents will become a thing of the past."