Janus comments
Page 55
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
Crime unlimited
ONLY the Americans perhaps would be bold enough to proclaim a national transportation week. It fell this year between May 11 and 17 and was introduced by President Nixon (no less). He urged public participation in "appropriate ceremonies" to honour an industry which "makes all other industries possible". Commerce and culture, he said, "depend on a revitalized transportation industry to end congestion and delay and to prepare for the burgeoning demands of the future".
In Britain the "appropriate ceremonies" might be too closely concerned for comfort with such matters as container traffic and the carriage of commuters into London. One cannot easily imagine a tribute coming from the Prime Minister and the public might react in a different way from that expected by the sponsors of a national week.
Prophecies
As for the "burgeoning demands of the future," disturbing prophecies have been made of the state of Britain at the end of the century if population and the numbers of cars and other vehicles continue to expand at the present rate. There will be a situation, one is led to suppose, where in one case a network of urban roads becomes so vast that it swallows up the town it is supposed to serve; and in another case there are so many people that there is no longer room for roads.
Similar gloomy possibilities are under consideration in America. The scale is so much greater that the details show up more clearly and sooner than in Britain. When a writer or lecturer wishes to demonstrate how vast and complicated a road system can become he invariably chooses his illustrations from Los Angeles, New York or some other transatlantic Megapolis.
American statistics also are of a totally different order. Last year there were 55,300 road deaths in the US and 4,400,000 people were injured. This compares with an annual total in Britain of about 5,000 deaths and 350,000 injuries. Although these figures give no cause for complacency at least the rate of increase appears to have been checked in the last year or so whereas in America it continues unabated.
With vehicle thefts the difference is probably even wider. Nobody seems certain of the exact value of goods stolen from vehicles in Britain as a whole but it is almost certainly less than 10 per cent of the annual figure of £200m usually given for the US. On this point also the situation in America appears to be deteriorating much more rapidly towards the theoretical moment when more loads are stolen from lorries than are actually put on them.
US operators are also well behind in concerting action to deal with a growing threat. It is 10 years since the vehicle security committee was set up by the Road Haulage Association. All through the intervening period the action taken has followed a consistent plan even if all the methods have not been equally successful.
Only in the last year or so has the road transport industry in the US tackled the problem in the same way. The stimulus has been what a recent inquiry picturesquely described as "the rising tide of hijacking that is sweeping the trucking industry from coast to coast". The threat is said to "hang over the head of today's professional driver like a dark cloud".
The inquiry was carried out by contributors to a publication called Open Road and the Professional Driver. It reveals some curiously exact parallels with what has happened and is happening in Britain.
One driver commented that in Comparison with other types of crime "there has been very little publicity about the wave of hijacking". At one time the security committee complained in similar terms. With the passage of time the Press and other media have paid more attention to the problem and this has certainly helped to achieve the result for which American drivers hope. More publicity, they believe, "would educate the public to what is going on, enlist their support in fighting the menace and tend to curb the bold ventures of the hijackers".
The tendency of the thieves to extend their range of operations is also familiar. The president of the Colorado Motor Carriers Association reported that there had been no hijacking problem in Denver. There were signs, however, that the gangsters were moving into the area. The association had appointed a security committee to study the problem.
Measures
Specific measures taken have nearly all been adopted in Britain, some of them a considerable time ago. Companies are now instructing drivers "to maintain utmost secrecy about their cargoes". Special precautions are being taken to eliminate markings or other evidence of what a vehicle is carrying.
At least one company is painting identification symbols on the roof of vehicles, a practice that has been tried in Britain, "With the growing use of law enforcement aircraft," says the operator, "the identification of trucks from the air will not only be an aid to apprehending thieves but an aid to traffic controls and providing help on the highway in emergencies through use of radios." A "hot-line alert" radio system is proposed by the Colorado association. It will have direct contact with the Denver police and the Colorado state patrol and will operate in much the same way as the British vehicle observer corps. Information about a stolen vehicle will go to the "central dispatcher" for immediate transmission to all commercial vehicles in use.
Drivers would only relay information. Arrests would be left to the authorities. An additional proposal is for the payment of rewards for successful recoveries. Elsewhere in the US, rewards are already offered for information leading to the or conviction of hijackers "and other malefactors preying on the trucking industry".
Proposals
A few of the proposals go beyond what is being done in Britain. Some US operators are said to be planning training schools specifically to equip drivers for "the war against hijackers". The main concern would be instruction in normal security measures. But there might also be special courses in the art of defence, "including boxing and karate".
Some drivers have asked permission to carry small arms and even rifles and shotguns. Other drivers take the opposite view which is shared by most operators and by the authorities. Some operators already arrange for their lorries to travel in convoys of two or three. In other cases radio cars, sometimes with armed guards, follow vehicles with particularly valuable loads.
In the US as in Britain there is general agreement that the thieves are well organized and that their plans include facilities for disposing of the stolen goods. In those towns where hijacking is already endemic the organization is correspondingly thorough. An account largely concerned with the situation in New York quotes the admission by operators that a good deal of the crime is "in order" and involves collusion between the thieves and dishonest employees.
In a growing number of cases, the article continues, thefts take place in what might be thought safe areas, such as lorry terminals, airports and rail piggyback yards. The need is felt for more co-operation in joint security measures by the rail, air and road transport industries. A "statewide anti-hijack commission" now being proposed would add representatives of the steamship association, the police and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The Airport Security Council has started a drive bringing in road operators as well as the taw enforcement authorities. The council's executive director has said that the "truck is the common denominator to all air freight handling" and therefore considers it essential that the two forms of transport should work together in a drive to protect goods in transit.
All in all operators will easily recognize striking resemblances between what is happening or about to happen in the US and what has already been substantially achieved in Britain over a decade.