If you've had your car stolen or broken into, you know what a pain and heartache it is -- insurance, time lost on the job, and just a feeling of outrage.

Well, now the odds of your having to go all through that have fallen sharply.

Linda Patricelli couldn't believe it. She had parked her van in a spot near the opening of the Kent Park and Ride lot, very near the security officer, but when she went to pick it up after work, it was gone. And she wasn't the only victim!

Patricelli and the other driver joined thousands of car theft victims all over King County. So many that three years ago the greater Seattle area gained the unwelcome distinction of having the sixth-worst auto theft rate in the entire country!

"He knew how to steal cars. That was his expertise."

An undercover cop is talking about Liam Moynahan of Seattle, accused of stealing 136 cars in just five months.

"There was a time when you could commit multiple car thefts and never see a day in prison," said King County deputy prosecuting attorney Alex Voorhees.

Voorhees was among the original members of a special effort within the prosecutor's office, called the Car Theft Initiative, that began three years ago.

"Now we've upped the ante, essentially, and are putting people in prison for taking cars," said Voorhees.

And it's working. When the Car Theft Initiative began in 2005, car thieves stole more than 13,000 vehicles. By last year, that number had dropped to fewer than 8,800. That's down a whopping 34 percent. That compares with a national car theft decline of just 9 percent in the same period.

Insurance experts say the good news for Seattle-area car owners is that if this trend continues, you could see your insurance rates fall as well.

As for Liam Moynihan, instead of the three year sentence he might have faced before the Car Theft Initiative, he was given a prison term more than three times that.