The VOC has a thousand eyes
Page 42
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
THERE ARE 800 commercial operators in the Vehicle Observer Corps and they, together with the police and the thousands of mobiles on the Air Call network, are fighting a winning battle against lorry hijackers. This is the opinion of Mr Jack Brown who founded the VOC back in 1962.
The VOC depends largely on landline communications with its members but other organications such as Securicor and Atlas Express have vehicles on radio-control networks. VOC stresses that stolen vehicles in the first instance should be reported to the police who contact all police control rooms and the VOC London by telex. The VOC then alerts its members in the immediate vicinity of the theft and these members in turn widen the alerted area by contacting their nearest neighbours outside their own area and so the message is eventually relayed country-wide. On receipt of a message members alert their drivers who immediately become "searchers".
At the same time, VOC advises the nearest Air Call control room whose operator in turn passes on the information on two-way radio control to its mobiles. A similar system is used for advising Securicor and Atlas Express. These companies operate private transmitters. .
In the longer term the information is relayed to national television and local radio networks. In this respect the VOC can rightly claim that it's using almost every known means of instant communication. Post Office landline, two-way radio control both private and commercial, police panda cars, telex, radio and television.
Since all of these services are either part of a public service as in the case of the police or a very small segment of the company's principal use of the equipment, costing the operation is not feasible. Results, however, indicate that it is completely
practicable. LS.