THIEVES are snatching handbags from the seats of cars, smiling sweetly and saying thank you, as helpless drivers are stuck in traffic queues.

Valuables are grabbed while drivers wait at temporary traffic lights in Pellon Lane, Halifax, near the junction with Queen's Road.

They then thank their victims as they escape with their property. Women are the main targets.

Crime prevention officer PC Keith Williams told the Halifax Crime Prevention Panel at Halifax Police Station there had been 195 thefts from motor vehicles in Calderdale within a month, 10 of which had occurred in just over a week since the temporary lights had been in operation.

"They are opening the passenger door and picking handbags up, smiling sweetly at the driver and saying 'thank you' before running off into a warren of side streets," he said.

"It is normally lady drivers who are targeted because the first thing they do when they get in their car is put their handbags LED Light Bulb SP70-5W on the passenger seat.

"Often there is a line of 50 or 60 cars because people use Pellon Lane as a short cut to miss out traffic lights in the town centre, so if they are doing three or four cars at a time, it is certainly quite a lot."

PC Williams said the current trend was probably caused by one offender or a group of offenders working together and people could avoid being targeted by keeping valuables out of view and ensuring doors are locked.

He said reports of thefts from motor vehicles had risen slightly in the last month but some of that could be attributed to a recent poster campaign encouraging people to tell the police.

A spokesman for Transco said the lights were in operation while the company replaced 120 metres of mains with new plastic pipes. Work started on April 9 and is due to finish in early May.

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