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RHA highlights 'unreported' truck crime

8th January 2009
Page 7
Page 7, 8th January 2009 — RHA highlights 'unreported' truck crime
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t4 Joanna Bourke LORRY CRIME HAS almost doubled over the past year but the Road Haulage Association (RHA) insists that many more freight-related crimes are going unreported.

The latest TruckPol statistics show lorry crime rose by 83% in 2008, to 4,171 incidents, but the RHA believes that this figure would be higher if more HGV crimes were reported.

The freight crime intelligence unit, a division of the Association of Chief Police Officers' Vehicle Crime Intelligence Service (AVCIS), received 1,103 reports in the second quarter of 2008 compared with 556 in the same period of 2007. In the same period in 2006, 823 road freight crimes were reported.

The RHA's manager of infrastructure, Chrys Rampley, says many companies will not report a crime if the value of the stolen goods is below the threshold of an insurance claim.

Between April and September 2008, the Metropolitan Police area accounted for the largest number of truck crimes with the majority of these being thefts of vehicles David Scott Smith, one of the RHA's South-East area managers, is not surprised by the figures. "London attracts a high number of HGVs, which end up having to park outside of a delivery point not always the safest areas and prone to thieves," he says.

Inspector Simon Westwood of the Central Motorway Policing Group does not predict a change in trends, and warns drivers that January is a key time for attacks due to the volume of sale goods tieing transported.

• Detective Constable Paul Lambotte, head of unit at AVCLS, has confirmed negotiations are ongoing after the Home Office's refusal of more funding for TruckPol. "I'm optimistic that the Home Office will give serious thought to TruckPol," he says.


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