Look to the defences
Page 81
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-IOW SECURE are your prenises and vehicles? You cantot hope to prevent petty 3ilfering, and few firms do )ther than turn a blind eye to the disappearance of such small items as screws, bolts, nuts, or envelopes from their stores.
Theft from within is one thing, but could someone walk in off the street and remove something from your premises . . particularly at weekends or in the evenings? And I'm not just talking about small items. My thoughts are running along such lines after two Sunday visits to coach operators' premises in the company of a coach driver.
In both cases, we walked unchallenged into unlocked depots, and looked in vain for someone on duty before taking a coach out. In one depot this involved moving no fewer than six vehicles — in and out — to get the one allocated to our work.
Such trust reflects the rarity of coach thefts, but I'll wager that if either of the two operators mentioned above had a coach stolen on a Sunday morning, he wouldn't know anything about it for 24 hours. Where could it be by then?
Perhaps you think I'm being an alarmist, but it does happen and a large bus in inexperienced hands can cause all manner of damage to parked cars and general street furniture. What will your insurance company say then? And even if the coach or bus isn't stolen, a couple of yobs with knives and spray paint can do a great deal of damage.
So how do you tighten up on security? For a start, make it difficult for unauthorised people to get into your premises. Ensure that perimeter fences are in good repair, and that the gates are padlocked. If your premises are staffed around the clock, it is worthwhile to have a night shift staff working within sight of the gate. They might not be looking out for thieves, but their presence on duty is almost as effective a deterrent as a pack of guard dogs.
Keep your yard well lit — a high electricity bill is better than an even higher bill for vandal damage — and keep all your coaches in the yard. If you trust your drivers, and you shouldn't employ them if you don't, they should be issued with keys for the gates so that none of the vehicles need be parked in nearby streets or lay-bys.
In many operators yards, no effort is made to prevent unauthorised access to vehicles, or to stop them being taken away. Passenger doors are seldom locked, and once inside all anyone has to do to start the vehicle is find the master switch and the start button. Even an eight-year-old can do that!
Why not use ignition keys? Ugh! you cry, visualising driver Smith losing his at Land's End, or driver Brown turning up for an important hire with the key for the 20-year old Vega instead of the 1978 Viewmaster.
But that won't happen if you have a standard key which fits all your coaches and which is issued to all authorised personnel. Of course locks tend to be available universally, but security can still be preserved if you take a note of the lock numbers and then file them off the lockface. But remember to follow that procedure in the correct order!
It is not difficult to wire a lock into the ignition circuit. Of course, you argue that all this talk of locks sounds fine to the man who buys new coaches and can specify the number of locks he wants. You buy secondhand and end up with an assortment of different locks and keys. Sorry, chaps: no excuses. You simply change the locks to your own standard.
You've locked the passenger door, the boot, and the ignition system. Everything that can be locked has been. Wrong. Most modern coaches, such as Plaxton and Duple current models, have lockable emergency windows at the rear. Many operators ignore them, but they are an Achilles heel which can be turned into a security strongpoint.
I accept that vehicle thefts are relatively uncommon, but this is not the case with plant and equipment. Thieves will go for anything which isn't bolted to the workshop floor, so the premises must be locked when
they are unattended.
If your garage is left open and a small van or lorry drives up and collects some valuable plant, who is going to be suspicious? Most people will see your plant and equipment as nothing other than bits of old machinery anyway, so the onus is on you and you alone.
Within the garage, insist that your employees use lockers, and provide them with padlocks which must be used. This removes the temptation of theft, and if an employee is careless enough to leave valuable items lying around someone will take them sooner or later. The loss may not be yours directly, but the bad air generated by such thefts will do nothing for the pattern of contented daily life.
I know your staff are honest, but are their friends? In most small companies, local people are popping in and out all day, so not all theft from employees need be the act of a fellow employee.
Money is, of course, an obvious target for theft. Keep it in the safe whenever you can. If it is in a drawer, provide a lock and make certain that employees don't have automatic access to the cash drawer. This is not a reflection on their honesty, but we can all make mistakes when counting cash or giving change. Provide some sort of alarm bell if any office where cash is handled. It need not be a loud klaxon. A buzzer which sounds in an adjacent office or a warning light by the telephone switchboard is enough.
Thefts are like accidents -they always happen to someone else. Follow some simply security .procedures and they should stay that way.
• See Bird's Eye View, page 65.