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Duke of hazards

19th November 2009
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Page 18, 19th November 2009 — Duke of hazards
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

Retired detective Neville Duke is the man behind the website Truckline Safety, designed to keep drivers and hauliers informed of criminal activity.

Words: Chris TindaLL I Images: Richard Mann

WORK FOR DECADES, retire to ipain, write three books, exhibit your vatercolour paintings then create a vebsite that helps identify where lorry hieves are operating.

Not the life plan many of us would vant or aspire to, but Neville Duke ust can't stop working.

"When you retire from the police, fou can't actually retire, your brain is .hat active,he says at his home werlooking the Humber Bridge. "You :an only lie on a beach, have a coffee ind go for a walk so many times."

Former West Yorkshire Police leteetive Duke soon got itchy feet in he Spanish sand.

So when a chance conversation with driver in a local gym brought home o him how much better Continental irivers are treated, and the sheer lumber and quality of truckstops and notorway service stations available to hem, he began to wonder why the _31( had got it so wrong.

The final 10 years of his (nominal) vorking life had involved intelligenceed detection of road traffic crime, and .o the seeds of a solution were sown in he heat of the Andalucian sunshine.

Back on English shores, the man who vas once involved in labyrinthine nquiries such as the hunt for the iTorkshire Ripper put all his skills to pod use to develop a wider inderstandi rig of the problem.

Within 10 days, he and his partner, Carol, who is involved in setting up family assistance centres around the world following major disasters, had visited 200 industrial estates, motorway service areas (MSAs) and lorry parks. reviewing the security arrangements and discovering why drivers parked where they did.

Duke then contacted 1,000 haulage businesses. MSAs, the Department for Transport and insurance companies to explain what he was doing. He even appeared on BBC news programmes and continued to push the idea for secure parks for lorry drivers.

Visiting locations

The fruit of his endeavours is Truckline Safety (www.tnicidinesafety.co.uk) — a website that shows members which truckstop, MSA, industrial estate or layby is considered a criminal hotspot.

His visits helped him find out if a site is well lit, fenced and gated, while talking to drivers reveals if criminals are operating, This data is fed into the site and will be updated monthly, says Duke. The scale of Duke's ambition is already impressive, but he expects to have visited another 100 sites by the end of the year, taking the total to around 1,200, and he will continue checking out everything from a lowly verge catered for by a single burger van right up to highly secure lorry parks Similar to painting the Forth Bridge, the job is never-ending, but Duke hopes members will eventually start tilling in the gaps and informing others of areas to avoid. The message is simple: park where you like, but at least be informed of the dangers.

And, he says, he doesn't want to make money from it. "I just feel as though drivers are being let down," he replies, when asked what's driving him. "They get so much had press, it's as though their dignity has been taken away These are fantastic people who work so hard. 1 feel we are letting them down."

Crime figures

Duke adds: "It upsets me that criminals are able to target them. If you rob a bank, you get a prison sentence of between 10 and 12 years. If you rob a truck holding 00,000 of goods, you're lucky to get caught. Sentencing is ridiculous, too."

The ultimate solution, as far as he is concerned, is for lorry parks to be licensed and, therefore, regulated on a national basis.

Asked to describe the current state of truck parking in this country, he says: "Inadequate for dignity, safety and security. Some places are great, but others need a lot of work. The food could be good, but the security could be rubbish — £12 is adequate if it's secure, there's a shower and there are toilet facilities."

The success of Truck I ine Safety will be measured by a fall in crime figures, something Duke says is apparent, but the run-up to Christmas will be telling.

He welcomes the other sites that have recently launched, offering a similar service to drivers and hauliers, and says if it stops one driver from making a decision about where to park that they regret for the rest of their lives, then he's happy.

"And that's the point," he adds. "I've seen lorry drivers after they have been attacked and seen how it's affected them. Some of them don't go back to work.


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