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No matter what measures hauliers take to stop their trucks being stolen, they are almost powerless when faced with an ever-growing breed of determined and professional thieves.
"If someone wants to take your truck, they'll take it. There's a limit to what you can do," says Alan Hancock, transport manager of Kane Haulage of Redbourn, Herts. His company had a Leyland Daf 30.30 Constructor tipper stolen from its yard earlier this year. It has not been seen since.
Thieves lifted the depot gates off their hinges, broke into the truck and even took time to tip its load before driving off. The lorry was only six months old and one of a fleet of 16. The replacement cost £55,000.
"Although we got the insurance resolved, we were out of pocket in the revenue we lost through being one truck down," says Hancock.
Having one of his 10 trucks stolen came as a massive blow for Frome, Somerset-based haulier Alan Brunt. Its loss is likely to leave him almost £10,000 out of pocket even after he receives his insurance pay-out... and he is still waiting for that to arrive.
Brunt's H-reg Scania tractive unit was six months old and had only done 60,000km (37,000 miles) when it was taken on 1 June. He paid £43,000 for it — £3,000 less than the list price because it was a cancelled order — and the insurance company is refusing to base its refund on the higher price. He has had to pay £47,000 to replace it and his insurer is offering him only £35,000.
It also refuses to entertain his claim for the £1,200 he paid for painting and signwriting, and because it has not paid up yet, Brunt is facing double monthly repayments to his finance company, His driver lost £300 of personal belongings which were in the tractor. Neither Brunt's nor the driver's household insurer will reimburse him for that loss.
Brunt, who specialises in delivering paper for newspaper and magazine printers, has been a haulier for about eight years. He realises that he's lucky to to be big enough to write off the loss. "If I was an owner-driver," he asks, "what on earth would I have done?" • When Brian Pelham discovered that thieves had stolen his prize Foden tipper, he was so sickened that he planned to throw the towel in on his tiny Littlehampton-based business. Raiders broke into the fenced Redland Aggregates compound where Pelham keeps his trucks and opened the crook and steering locks he thought had safely immobilised the G-reg 3000 Series 6x4.
That was six weeks ago. An appeal on the local radio station and a two-hour trip in a hired private plane over the Sussex countryside were in vain. There was no sign of the vehicle in the numerous quarries, farms or scrapyards where the criminals might have taken it to break it.
Now Pelham says he is determined not to let the crooks force him out of haulage. His was one of four crane-fitted lorries taken in Sussex and surrounding areas that month, and Pelham is sure the raiders stole the trucks to order. He believes the £17,000 Pa[finger grab, 157kW (210hp) Cummins engine, Fuller box and Rockwell axles are probably now being used by unscrupulous operators abroad, possibly even in Kuwait where construction is booming.
The thieves used a crowbar to force the padlock on the gate of Redland's premises, where several of the company's subcontractors keep their trucks free of charge. They singled out Pelham's tipper and smashed the window or broke the lock. They even short-circuited the trailer deadman key. "Whoever did it, knew what they were doing," says Pelham.
He has hired a tipper until he can afford a replacement for the Foden — and he plans to fit his remaining vehicles with even more anti-theft equipment, including Securicor's Datatrak electronic tracking devices which allow an owner to check where a vehicle is to within 25m.
The system uses hidden radar antennae and costs £1,000 a lorry, with an £80 monthly charge to Securicor.
Pelham thinks it would be money well spent. He paid an 2,8,000 deposit for his Foden and has made 22 monthly payments of E1,100 to the leasing company. Although the Foden was a one-off, being the only 6x4 3000 Series with a crane in the country, his insurer is likely to pay only the market value based on industry price guides.
He reckons what he will get will not even cover what he owes the finance company. And he has had to hire another crane vehicle at a cost of £450 a week until he can raise the £10,000 deposit he needs for a new lorry. Despite his determination, Pelham admits that the theft has almost put him out of business at a time when work in construction is hard to get.
"I'm a fighter. If! added it all up, I'd probably stop. But I won't let it beat me," says Pelham, who owns his four-truck firm, Grab & Tip, with his wife. "Luckily,
we've been fairly busy through the recession. Our trucks have hardly been off the road at all."
Pelham was an international driver, but he gave it up to start his own company in 1981 so that he could spend more time at home. His other three vehicles, a Foden 6x4, an Iveco Ford Cargo 6x4 and a Volvo F7 6x4, are all tippers. He drives one himself and employs three drivers. The company works mainly for Redland and Ringway, carrying asphalt and working on road contracts.
One of the first questions detectives asked him when he reported the Foden stolen was whether his drivers were trustworthy — they all have keys to enter the Redland compound — or whether rival hauliers might have a grudge against him: "I told them I had no enemies," says Pelham.
He has had a vehicle stolen before. When one of his trucks disappeared six years ago, he had to pay £7,000 to the finance company after being taken to court following the insurance settlement.
He is bitter about the way insurers value stolen vehicles. "You insure a lorry for £60,000 and each year your premium goes up although the value the insurance firm puts on it goes down," he says. "By rights they should revalue the truck each year." He had just been to see his insurer — Norwich Union in Brighton — when CM visited him, but he is not optimistic about prompt payment. The insurance company wants their money soon enough, but they don't pay out as quickly."
He admits he has little chance of recovering the vehicle, although he is trying almost everything. Palfinger's agent, TH White in Devizes, has told its dealers to look out for customers attempting to sell parts of the serial-numbered stolen crane. Foden distributors have the vehicle's chassis details on file and its customers have to supply the chassis number of their truck to obtain parts. He is even offering a £2,000 reward, but is annoyed that the insurance company will not underwrite it.
Pelham does not blame Redland. The construction giant does not patrol its premises and he says that all the companies who store vehicles there know they do so at their own risk.
Despite the loss he is sure he will survive. There are two bypasses being built in the county which will keep his trucks occupied throughout the autumn, and then, he says, 'February and March are crazy months for us anyway." Although he does not plan to grow beyond four vehicles because he does not want the hassle and likes driving himself, he knows that truck theft has most impact on small companies.
"Big firms can cope with having a truck stolen," he says, "but for the small guy, it can wipe you out."
1=1 by Murdo Morrison