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P -MA SEMINAR
Page 14
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'Misleading' statistics mask 10% increase in truck crime
by Dave Young
TV CRIME reporter Roger Cook chaired the sixth Road Haulage Association (RHA) security seminar, entitled Combating Freight Crime. This included a video address from Home Office minister Vernon Coaker. who hinted at a policy change long lobbied for by RHA and TruckPol, "to make it easier to differentiate the theft of a phone from the cab from the theft of an entire load".
A number of speakers at the seminar said police targets give no more credit for solving cargo theft than for a car break-in, and that they produce misleading statistics. The government claims a 38% reduction in vehicle crime, but this masks a 10% rise in truck crime.
Superintendent John Wake. head of the Association of Chief Police Officers' Vehicle Crime Intelligence Service, said: -There are no properly collated figures for truck-related crime." The cost of such crime is estimated at £125m a year in the UK, averaging £35,000 per incident, and offences often fall across police force borders. TruckPol has got all forces supplying data, and has introduced standard reporting procedures, but often has to intervene to make them share intelligence.
RHA chief executive Roger King says the forthcoming Driver CPCs were an opportunity for a truck security module.
The 150 delegates at the seminar received practical advice on fighting 'diversion theft', whereby organised gangs receive information by following trucks and delivery patterns. Through a series of apparently innocent phone calls they build up an information portfolio, eventually persuading the driver or traffic clerk to divert the load to a new destination. The A14 was cited as an example of many security problems. "There are insufficient lay-bys, and little secure overnight parking. The most regulated industry in the UK has nowhere for its drivers to stop," said security consultant David Ryan.
A recurrent theme was authorities failing in their duty of care to drivers. with poor infrastructure threatening security and profitability.
In conclusion, Cook urged the Home Office to put road freight crime back on the agenda, and for local and national government to provide secure overnight parking.
I. www.roadtransport.com/cm