Five best places to get your motorcycle stolen

The National Insurance Crime Bureau, an insurance industry group, looked at records of motorcycle thefts for last year, and some of the stats might surprise you. Overall thefts were down 6 percent, and 41 percent of the stolen bikes were recovered.

What I found more interesting was where those thefts happened. What happens in Vegas may stay in Vegas, but if you're not careful your motorcycle might also stay in Vegas after you've left. That city had more thefts in 2014 than any other, easily edging out second-place New York.

2014 motorcycle thefts by city

Rank	City	Thefts	Change from 2013
1	Las Vegas	1,163	29 percent
2	New York	1,034	3 percent
3	San Diego	650	-7 percent
4	Miami	541	20 percent
5	San Francisco	516	34 percent

If you are wondering why Los Angeles didn't make the list, it's because the city of Los Angeles is just a small part of the huge metropolitan area. So the NICB also broke down the stats by county.

2014 motorcycle thefts by county

Rank	County	Thefts	Change from 2013
1	Clark, Nev.	1,308	22 percent
2	Los Angeles, Calif.	1,272	-20 percent
3	New York, N.Y.	1,034	3 percent
4	Miami-Dade, Fla.	910	25 percent
5	San Diego, Calif.	873	-3 percent

The other way to look at the theft statistics is to rank locations by the number of thefts per resident. That list has fewer big cities and includes some places you might not think of as motorcycle theft capitals.

Motorcycle thefts per 10,000 population

Rank	County	Rate per 10,000	Change from 2013
1	Fairfax, Va.	41.30	-34 percent
2	Horry, S.C.	16.88	41 percent
3	Monroe, Fla.	10.61	17 percent
4	Pickens, S.C.	9.10	22 percent
5	Knox, Ind.	8.43	14 percent

Fairfax is a suburban county of Washington, D.C. Horry County includes Myrtle Beach and Monroe County includes the Florida Keys.

Be careful where you park.