Hauliers told: pay for protection
Page 6
Page 7
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
Mi In the starkest warning of its kind so far, the police, insurance companies and the RHA say that hauliers who are not prepared to pay for security should not be surprised if their trucks go missing.
This follows a meeting in Cambridge last week where police from 10 counties met insurance companies and the RHA to study the extent of the problem and ways to reduce it.
Sergeant Terry Pearce from Norfolk Police says: "The minimum hauliers need is a locked enclosure and an alarm system, either on the vehicles or on the fence. There are cheap systems available and they must be worth it when we're talking about a lot of money on the line." He accuses hauliers of naivity when leaving trucks unprotected and expect ing them to remain untouched.
Insurer Norwich Union does not rule out forcing hauliers to fit security devices as a pre-condition of insurance. It already encourages their fitting, but says that few hauliers respond. A spokesman says: "I feel the climate is coming where there must be more thought about immobilisers...there is an apathy in the haulage industry where protection isn't treated with any seriousness." Liam Boyle from the RHA's Eastern region, who was also at the meeting, warns: "Watch where you park, watch what the drivers discuss in public and look seriously at immobilistaion devices."
The Cambridge meeting was called by loss adjuster Thomas Howell after its clients, the insurance companies, became alarmed at rocketing truck thefts, particularly in the South and East Anglia. Last year in Essex 914 goods vehicles were stolen, costing hauliers well over £7m: this figure was up 100 on 1990. Cambridgeshire lost 300 trucks in 1991 and Norfolk 100.
Police from the Metropolitan force, Hampshire, Kent, Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire, Northamptonshire, Cambridgeshire, Suffolk, Norfolk and Essex confirmed at the meeting that they will appoint officers to share intelligence on truck crime.
But many hauliers complain that the police pay little attention to truck theft.
For example, Kent-based Francis Contractors, a recent victim, says police did not respond when the company reported a padlock had been removed from its yard gates in the middle of the night. Shortly afterwards two MAN tippers, a third of its fleet and worth £60,000, were stolen.
However, forces in East Anglia are investigating at least two individuals who are allegedly involved in repeated truck and trailer thefts. The RHA is warning cellular telephone users not to release their electronic serial number. There is a gang, claiming to be British Telecom engineers, who contact users under the pretext of tracing problems, ask for serial numbers and make calls which are then charged to the legal account number.
D Trade association the Transport Users Group is to compile
a directory of stolen trucks and trailers, updated each week. It says this will enable its members to check they are not buying stolen goods.
TUG says it has spent two months testing a "revolutionary" truck immobilising device, due to be launched nest week. Director Robert Sutton describes the equipment as "better than anything on the market".