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Stop thief!

10th November 2011
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

CM looks at some of the gadgets that can help to protect your truck and its load from theft

Words: Steve Banner Every night of the week, thousands of hapless truck drivers ind they have no option but to park overnight in a deserted lay-by. The odds are that they

have run out of hours and are some distance from a friendly depot or a truckstop. Not all truckstops are as secure as they ought to be of course, and not all employers are willing to pay for drivers to use those that are.

So how can isolated trucks be made secure enough to resist an assault on the cab or the load area to allow time for the driver to summon help or start the engine and drive away? As far as the cab is concerned, one option is to invest in a system designed to protect the door’s handle and lock barrel from attack, such as Viper Guard’s Lock Guard.

It does not compromise the vehicle’s own locking system, says the manufacturer. No drilling is required and it can be installed in seconds. It can be deployed either when the cab is occupied or when it is unattended, Viper Guard adds, and is designed in such a way that the driver can leave the cab quickly in an emergency.

A set of Lock Guards – one for each door – costs from £139 to £169.

Maple Fleet Services can supply deadlocking bolts itted to the inside of the cab doors, says senior engineer Kevin Lynchehaun. They can be released quickly by the cab’s occupant if needs be, he adds.

Drivers may fear that they will be gassed while they are asleep, but those fears would appear to be unfounded, says truck security expert Frank Heinrich-Jones, business development executive at Wrightsure Insurance Group. “I’ve interviewed a considerable number of drivers across the UK and Europe, but although I’ve heard a lot of stories about gassing, I’ve seen no hard physical evidence,” he states.

It is a view shared by Road Haulage Association security manager Chrys Rampley. “We too have heard stories, but we’ve yet to see any proof,” she says. Lying awake all night worrying about being gassed will mean that a driver is likely to be too tired to take to the road the following morning, however, so for peace of mind alone a gas alarm may be worth the money.

Viper Guard offers one for £59.99 that gives both an audible and a visual warning of the presence of gas. It even markets a £65 gas mask designed to give users 15 minutes of breathing time – long enough to get the vehicle ired up and back on the road so that the windows can be lowered and the gas allowed to escape without the risk of unwelcome visitors dropping in – although this is probably taking caution a little far.

Cargo protection

If thieves do not attempt to break into the cab, then there is every chance that they will try to get into the cargo area while the driver is slumbering.

Viper Guard sells a range of locks designed to secure the rear doors, while Maple supplies the pneumatically operated Freightlock slam-lock. Suitable for use on roller-shutter and barn-type doors, it can be combined with a tracking system or with a security seal that will allow the operator to see if the load area has been accessed without authorisation.

“Freightlock is so strong that it’s even managed to withstand attacks by forklift trucks,” contends Lynchehaun.

Fast gaining a reputation as an effective means of protecting container doors and the rear doors of boxbodied trailers is a portable magnetic alarm called Zenloc. Containing no fewer than seven anti-tamper devices, it emits a piercing 120-decibel wail accompanied by a lashing strobe light in response to any unauthorised attempt to remove it.

The racket will hopefully scare off thieves as well as jolt a snoozing driver into instant wakefulness. When triggered, it sends an audible warning to a receiver carried by the driver, which features a coded electronic key that can be used to switch it off.

At £399, it is admittedly pricy, but Wrightsure says substantial insurance premium discounts are available to users. Plans are afoot to introduce a model that will protect curtainsiders – possibly next year – with 2012 also likely to see a version that will alert the truck’s home base if the alarm has gone off.

Curtainsiders

Curtainsiders are of course particularly vulnerable to being broken into. All a thief needs is a sharp knife.

One way of frustrating the light-ingered is to it the curtains with an anti-slash backing to one-third to one-half of their height. Heat-welded to the curtain’s back, TISS’s CurtainSafe is a good example.

“We’ve got two versions,” says sales director Charles Boucher. “Operators can either opt for a super-strength one made 100% from Kevlar or one that is half-Kevlar and half-nylon.”

At £21 to £22 per m2, the former is more expensive than the £18 that TISS charges for the latter. Both can resist slashing, however, he says.

Maple can protect curtains with an anti-slash metallicmatting laminate and can supply a secure TIR cord, claims Lynchehaun. One end is plugged into the trailer’s air system while the other goes into a security seal. If any attempt is made to tamper with it, then an alarm can be triggered in the driver’s cab and an alert can be sent straight to the operator.

“It only needs 1 bar of pressure to function,” he says.

Drivers and their loads are not only at risk at lonely rural roadsides: delivery drivers are potentially vulnerable to being assaulted and robbed in urban areas too.

With this risk in mind, Bellan is offering Pulse. Using a combination of GPS and GSM technology, and small enough to be concealed in a pocket or worn around the neck on a lanyard, it works as a panic button that the user can discreetly trigger to call for help if he or she feels under threat.

Capable of making and receiving voice calls, it can be used as a tracking device too. It is the kind of product that might have been welcomed by the unfortunate driver who was threatened by muggers at a motorway service area earlier this year and had diesel stolen.

Providing a panic button is one way in which employers can meet their obligations to protect lone workers – and drivers fall into that category – as set out in the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 and the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999.

Drivers occasionally leave the keys in the ignition and the engine running: sometimes through carelessness, sometimes because the engine is required to operate equipment itted to the vehicle. As a consequence, there is always the risk that somebody will climb behind the wheel and disappear up the road with the truck.

For some time, Maple has offered Drivelock, says Lynchehaun. It scans drivers and prevents the vehicle from being moved if it does not recognise them, even if the keys are present and the engine is ticking over.

“We can also install CCTV cameras,” he adds. “We usually it four – one on each side of the truck, one at the rear, and one that’s forward-facing.” Cameras can of course be a useful deterrent and will help to identify miscreants.

They can also help drivers and operators refute claims that a truck struck another vehicle when the camera evidence shows that it clearly did not, with forward-facing cameras providing some protection against staged accidents: incidents where drivers deliberately pull out in front of a truck and cause a collision, then promptly ile a compensation claim.

On the right track

The best advice any driver can be given if confronted by thieves is to not to try to be a hero. Even the most valuable load is not worth a human life.

Even if the truck is taken, then all may not be lost. Tracking systems such as Tracker may be able to pinpoint its whereabouts so that the police can intercept it, while Maple markets a system that will gradually slow a stolen wagon to walking pace.

It can be set to cut in once the vehicle has been under way for several minutes – and is thus going to be a mile or two from the stranded driver who may otherwise face retaliation from a bunch of furious thugs – or once it has exceeded, say, 40mph.

On safety grounds, the law does not permit Maple to it a device that will bring a stolen truck to a sudden stop and immobilise it. Nor does it allow a system to be installed that would trap the thieves in the cab until the police arrive. It seems a pity that the rights of drivers to earn their living without being attacked are not given equal weight. ■


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