Targets of hate Healthy competition is a fact of life,
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but what do you do when your vehicles are attacked by unknown assailants trying to drive you out of business? CM talks to three owner-drivers who have been targets.
Cranberry Haulage is a fledgling twolorry business. Ever since it was set up ast year it has been dogged by attacks on its vehicles and the theft of a trailer causing expense and worry to its owner, former farm worker Clive Eccles.
The business is based in Darwen, Lancs, a small industrial centre famed for its "pepperpot" hilltop tower which Hitler tried to bomb during the war. Eccles' operating centre is the farm where he grew up and worked for 15 years until last year's switch to haulage. It is just below the tower, and it is here the attacks have taken place in the small hours.
The aggravation began as soon as Eccles set up with an old American Mack he bought for £700. He was setting off for a show in Blackpool one day when the police arrived to question him because the vehicle had been reported stolen. It took two hours to convince them that he was the rightful owner.
Shortly afterwards the attacks on the vehicle began. Pellets were fired at the windscreen and Eccles found the air lines cut Fearing that something in the vehicle's history might have prompted this action he took it off the road and bought a secondhand Volvo F12.
The attacks intensified. Within the next few months an incident took place every other night, according to Eccles, who by now suspected a former haulier whose motive was envy.
While parked at night the Volvo had bricks thrown through the windscreen; wiring ripped off the trailer; all the tyres let down and its lights smashed. Some attacks took Commercial Motor 25 February-3 March 1993 place while Eccles and his family were on holiday. Finally the trailer, complete with two fork-lifts trucks on board, was stolen—the theft cost him £6,000.
That was in November, and Eccles is still awaiting settlement of his insurance claim. Meanwhile he is paying £63 a week to hire a trailer. He became so nervous of parking overnight in Darwen that he has taken to staying away from home during the week and parking the vehicle at weekends in a secure compound costing £15 a week.
"I plan to stay in haulage—I won't be driven out," says Eccles, who bought a second Volvo this month and has taken on a driver. The business, which specialises in container work, is thriving and Eccles plans to add a third vehicle by the end of the year. But the additional vehicle brings worries that the attacks, which have died down since November's theft, will resume: "It's bad enough trying to hide one vehicle, let alone two," says Eccles. If the driver jumps in and someone's tampered with the lorry, anything could happen."
Despite Eccles' strong suspicions of the culprit's identity the police have been unable to act without firm evidence: "They've got to catch somebody actually doing it," he says.
In a bid to end the harassment Eccles is building a hard-standing yard with security cameras at his operating centre. He and his driver are carrying out the task which will set the firm back another £4,000—no small sum for a new business.
Does he ever want to just go round and thump the suspected villain? Eccles grins: "I'm not a vindictive person but... something like that."
by Patric Cunnane Richard Newman wonders whatever happened to the unwritten code of honour among truck drivers. For him, the days of mutual respect and assistance in times of difficulty have been replaced by malicious deeds and damaged trucks.
Newman runs Richard A Newman Transport, a Derbyshire-based haulage outfit which specialises in construction work. He is another operators who appears to be the victim of a vendetta by an unknown enemy.
Potentially lethal acts perpetrated so far include wheelnuts deliberately unscrewed, hacksawed oil pipes on a vehicle-mounted crane, holes drilled in other oilpipes, and four-inch metal spikes placed under every wheel on a trailer which resulted in an expensive replacement bill. So far the attacks have cost him more than £2,000 in repairs and lost time, but thankfully none of the drivers involved have been injured.
"This is no tale of vandalism," he says. "Whoever is doing this knows me, my vehicles and my business activities."
Newman set up his haulage business five years ago. By last October he employed four drivers running two six-wheelers and two artics, mostly working out of the ECC Building Products plant at Hull and Ward which produces concrete blocks.
He no longer drives regularly himself, and says operating costs continued to rise as ECC work declined in line with the current state of the building industry. Newman had to review his operational activities: he mothballed two vehicles and laid off two drivers. Newman emphasises that he places no suspicion on his two former employees, although the first attacks coincided with these changes and the start of another job.
"At the beginning of October I managed to secure regular work from another source," he says. "This meant that if I cut the number of loads a day for the vehicle operating out of ECC to one from two I could run it more cost effectively, because I could arrange a return load The move actually provided one of the remaining hauliers with the potential for an extra load each day. This is because ECC works a two-pool priority system, so drivers like Newman's in pool A, have first call on extra work over drivers in pool B. Newman's vehicle would usually be expected to return empty for another trip. As he has given up his call on this, the extra work is now being allocated elsewhere.
The attacks have all taken place at night while his trucks were parked at ECC's vehicle park Although ECC has 24-hour security, drivers come and go regularly. However, it was alert security staff who first noticed the loose wheel nuts which could have been so dangerous.
"It's the life of my drivers, or of some other innocent road user that I'm concerned about," says Newman.The police have now become involved and Newman believes that the initiative is back with him.
"We are prepared now. We make more vehicle checks than we should ever have to. It may be unpleasant at 04:00hrs and when it's raining, but if that's what it takes to continue, that's just what we'll do," says Newman. He has issued a challenge to the anonymous attacker to face him with his complaint, but believes the vindictive acts are those of a coward and expects no response. He hopes that involving the police will either frighten off the perpetrator or provoke him into making a mistake that will lead to his capture. He will gladly pay a reward for any information leading to prosecution.
CI by Steve McQueen Kbent owner-driver Geoffrey Wallwork was eventually driven out of business y an attack which left his single vehicle, a Volvo F12 Globetrotter, immobilised and caused £6,500 worth of damage to the cab.
Wallwork had apparently been mistaken for tipper driver Kevin Taylor, who was jailed for 18 months after a hitand-run accident in which Taylor's vehicle killed 11-year old Darren Owen in Sittingbourne in 1989.
The attack on Wallwork's Volvo in January last year was accompanied by a series of threats, including a letter received the day of the assault which warned: "You murdering bastard—this time it's your lorry, next time it will be your wife and kid." There were other letters and all were addressed to Kevin Taylor. Fearing for his family Wallwork appeared on TVS television news to prove the attackers had targeted the wrong man. Wallwork told CM that his truck was vandalised near his home: "My radio cassette was smashed; my tachograph was stolen; all the electrics were ripped out. I told the police kids don't do that, my lorry has been immobilised for some reason." Privately, Wallwork harboured suspicions that his attackers knew he was not Kevin Taylor but were using the tragedy as a smokescreen to drive him out of business.
And they succeeded. Although his lorry was repaired after three weeks, Wallwork had lost more than £3,000 worth of work and needed a bridging loan of £4,000 to get back on the road, buy fuel and bring his truck payments up to date. Wallwork's bank refused to lend him the cash although he had a regular flow of international work bringing in up to — £7,000 a month. It made no difference that Wallwork was a long-standing customer or that the firm he worked for had backed him by offering to pay him every 30 days instead of every 45. "I'll be thrown on the dole for the sake of a bridging loan," Wallwork told CM.