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156 
20th-CENTURY HIGHWAYMAN
Page 75
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WHETHER Dick Turpin and Claud Duval were held in esteem in their lifetime is not certain. Since their death they have become figures of romance and some of the glamour rubs off on any ruffians who are bold enough to rob a mail train or a bullion van. The highest praise is reserved for the spectacular crime and the most valuable booty.
The comparison with the old-style highwayman cannot go very deep. The lorry thief is usually merely the tool of other more clever people who plan the robbery and take none of the physical risks. The highwayman paid for his mistakes with his life and the penalties imposed today are often slight. The main link between the old and new is the need for speed and for anonymity.
On both points the aim of the law is to match the criminal. It is no use sending uniformed Bow Street runners on foot to catch the thief in a fast car. The police must act quickly and they must try to be where they are not expected.
In accordance with this principle the vehicle observer corps should be the perfect auxiliaries. The technique is now familiar. Transmission of news of a stolen vehicle should in theory have the result that within minutes cars are swarming in every district chosen. If the loss is reported quickly enough the thieves could hardly escape.
The criminal In practice this is not so easy. The criminals prefer to take a vehicle which they know will not be missed for a long time—long enough for them to be able to transfer its contents to another innocentseeming lorry. They may have studied the driver's habits closely or they may have been given the information by an accomplice. Even an alert observer corps would rarely be successful with this handicap.
Unfortunately not every corps keeps up the required standard of WO per cent turnout. There is no stronger inducement to apathy than a ritual which appears to serve no purpose. The corps member may be busy when he receives a call. He decides not to go out on patrol. Next time the omission comes the more easily and in the end he hardly bothers to note down the details. He is a volunteer subject to no discipline and .immune from reproach unless an energetic corps leader happens to check on his movements.
One may hope that every member of a corps will have an opportunity to read the tributes paid on the fifth anniversary of the date when the first corps came under starter's order in the district of Rotherhithe. This was at one time the favourite hunting ground for the lorry thief and it was also a useful place in which to leave the empty lorry when it had served its purpose. This type of crime has now become rarer in Rotherhithe than in practically any other area of London and the criminals find other places for their returned empties.
The corps
Other factors have been present beside an active vehicle observer corps. The local police are particularly keen and drivers have been discouraged from leaving their vehicles unattended, particularly at night, in the streets on the south side of the river near London Bridge. But it would be hard to avoid the conclusion that the main reason for the virtual elimination of the lorry theft is the work of the corps under the leadership of Mr. J. T. Brown.
There is no impressive tally of kills and near misses. The chief value of the corps, it may be deduced, is its deterrent effect. The thief finds that the enjoyment has gone out of the time-honoured pastime of lorrydragging when any passing car may hold an observer who is pleased that he has just spotted the one number among thousands for which he has been searching.
Experience has shown that it is as difficult to keep a bad man down as a good man. The criminal who is made uncomfortable by the searching eyes of Rotherhithe transfers his activities to another district where he hopes that an observer corps does not exist or lies dormant. The spread of the work of the corps outwards from the centre of London has forced the thief to go even farther afield and in some cases to turn his attention to a different technique.
It is probably more than a coincidence that a decline in lorry-dragging has been matched by an increase in hi-jacking. The thief has followed the example of Dick Turpin and taken to the lonely high road. Time is almost always on his side. He takes the precaution of capturing the driver as well as the lorry and will not release the one until he has safely disposed of the other.
Even here the observer corps are not altogether useless. In the country districts the lorry drivers themselves form the backbone of the corps and in the course of their ordinary duties look for vehicles about which they have been warned at their depot or sometimes by radio contact.
Security, however, begins at home. If all the advice which has poured out from the vehicle security committee over the past five years or more had been scrupulously followed the number of vehicle thefts would have been negligible. The criminals take the line of least resistance. If every vehicle is to them a problem vehicle, they will turn to other varieties of crime, of which there is a considerable choice.
Vehicle protection is not merely a matter of following the rules. It is an attitude of mind. The operator who runs his business casually will not be bothered with even the more obvious precautions against theft. He takes the optimistic view that these things do not happen to him and that in any case the insurance company will look after the financial loss. He is sometimes disillusioned on this score. The insurance company does not always accept the risk—at least without laying down its own conditions such as the fitting of security devices and the parking of loaded vehicles in a safe and protected place at night.
The insurers
There should be welcome for a more positive approach by the insurance world. The committee has had an insurance representative as a member since it was set up and his organization has helped with some of the committee's projects. From insurers in general, however, there is a reluctance to admit that the work of the committee and of the observer corps has been successful to the extent of reducing or holding down the level of vehicle thefts.
It is easy to understand that insurers would tend to play down any development which might lead to a demand for a reduction in preiniums and to emphasize changes which might increase the risk they are expected to bear. It might be worth joining in the chorus of praise for the many operators who are helping actively in the fight against crime. Other operators might be encouraged to take part.