NO NEWS IS GOOD NEWS
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• It's funny how we've all become bored by space travel. It seems like yesterday that we were sitting glued to our TVs watching Neil Armstrong take his "giant step for mankind". Actually it was 23 years ago. And, apart from the flurry of interest in the Space Shuttle, we've reached the point where we hardly seem to notice when a new rocket is launched. Presumably when all the sci-fi prophets predicted that space travel would become commonplace what they really meant was that it wouldn't be news anymore.
It's a pity the same can't be said for truck theft. This week it's our lead story. A month after CM called for Home Secretary Kenneth Clarke to set up a nationwide police task force to combat truck crime, we're delighted to report on the success of the Metropolitan Police's Stolen Vehicle Investigation Squad.
The boys from the Met appear to have cracked a major ring following a raid on a warehouse which uncovered eight skips full of lorry parts worth an estimated E1m.
But at the risk of sounding ungrateful we can't help wondering what's happened to the hundred or so wagons that have appeared in the pages of CM's Crimeline since the start of the year. Were they sold intact, or for scrap? Someone must know.
What the Met have done other forces must also do: namely put the thieves out of business for good. But for that to happen each force must have the specialist resources to combat truck crime, and those resources need to be managed on a national basis. As the slogan says, "together we'll crack it".
If the 1992 Car Crime Prevention Year has been as successful as some Home Office ministers say, surely resources can now be spared for a real blitz on truck theft.
The only time we'll know we've got it licked is when Commercial Motor's news team starts saying: "Not another load of truck thieves arrested, that's the fifth story this week... We should be so lucky.