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Police to send mobile phone crime warnings
Page 9
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NEARLY 500 mobile phone users have been connected to a new police messaging service to alert them about truck crime.
The pioneering initiative by Truck Watch in South Yorkshire is designed to speed up communication with truck drivers and operators. Under the old system police would send out faxes to TruckWatch members when trucks and loads were reported stolen.
But David Ransom,chief executive of the charity People United Against Crime, which manages Truck Watch in the region,says this relied on whoever picked up the fax to pass on the message to drivers: "If the crime happens at mid night there's nobody in the office to relay the message."
He adds that South Yorkshire Police have provided a machine which automatically sends out messages on 12 phone lines at once: "They could he sent as text but police have some concern [that] drivers will have to take their eyes off the road to read it."
The initiative started in July and could eventually involve tens of thousands of drivers around the country, because the governmentbacked Joint Action Group on Lorry Theft is examining how the success of TruckWatch in South Yorkshire could be extended nationwide (CM, 15 July).