letters
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We welcome letters for publication on transport topics. Address them to Commercial Motor, 40 Bowling Green Lane, London, EC1.
Container security
I read with great interest your item concerning crime and container traffic, in the January 2 issue. As a student in the Industrial Transport Association and also a corporal traffic operator in the Royal Corps of Transport. I hold a keen interest in the movement of freight by all means of transport and, of equal importance, the safe keeping of such freight.
As Sir Andrew Crichton rightly pointed out, the criminal world has not only achieved a more sophisticated method of obtaining goods but seems to be acquiring a much keener interest in container traffic than the operator would like. As remarked in CM this is due to the mounting value of the freight to be transported by this method.
However, if the cure for this is to be the quoted one of establishing top-security parks based on the American idea, involving large areas surrounded by barbed wire and the employment of patrolmen, dogs and closed-circuit television, then this could be the start of a very costly venture! A properly secure area of even one acre might require six men to patrol it and to monitor the TV in round-the-clock terms. And while this cost might be recoverable from the owners of container-carrying or other vehicles using the park, such parks would surely still be vulnerable, to the extent that men can be immobilized.
May I be permitted to suggest an alternative solution that could be considered if container parks are to be established? This might be more expensive at the outset, but could prove cheaper over a period of, say, five years and would perhaps be more secure. My suggestion is that locking devices should be fitted on tracks sunk in to the park, so that when a vehicle was parked these devices would be secured on the vehicle axles:.there could also be an alarm system linking the locking device to the container carried by the vehicle.
The alarm system would, if possible, be connected to a local police station, or, if this is not possible, to a small building inside the park. I am sure that the cost of these parks could be offset by a parking fee and that container operators and the like would consider this a small price to pay for the peace of mind of knowing that vehicles parked in these places would be secure.
I have in mind that the locking devices could be flush with the ground when not in use and would be spaced at convenient intervals for securing to one or more axles of a vehicle or trailer.
CPL. G. WADSLEY Royal Corps of Transport, Kempston, Bedford.