TruckPol more than ever needs our support, Frank Heinrich-Jones FCII writes.
He’s a Chartered Insurance Practitioner, at Wrightsure Insurance Group, who are specialist commercial transport insurance brokers.
Police have reported a 60 per cent increase in the number of trucks stolen in 2010 and commercial vehicle operators are being urged to do more to protect their trucks. TruckPol, the Police Road Freight Crime Unit has recently published its Annual Report for 2010. It makes depressing reading and must surely be a cause for concern for all UK transport operators. However, despite this big increase in truck crime the Home Office have announced that they are stopping their matched funding of TruckPol.
The headline crime numbers show that 2,552 HGVs valued £26.5m were reported stolen in 2010 compared with 1,604 in 2009. Iveco was the most targeted model with 413 stolen last year, while 247 were Scania trucks and 246 were DAF. However, please note that consideration should be given to the total number of each model that are in circulation to provide a true comparison.
The sharp rise in thefts is blamed on a high demand for Lorries and mechanical parts in developing countries. Criminals are also stealing vehicles for their expensive loads to sell on the black market. In 2010 TruckPol recorded 2,567 fright crimes valued £25,700,000 (excluding thefts of trucks) which is a 20 per cent drop on the 3,228 reported freight crimes in 2009. However, these numbers need to be treated with some caution as it is known that not all UK police forces report road freight crimes to TruckPol and the true value of stolen property is not always known, or provided, so the values reported must be viewed as a minimum guide only. In addition, the 2010 figures now no longer include Theft of Fuel (less than 1,000 litres) from trucks, whereas such incidents were previously recorded by TruckPol.
Other types of crime recorded included –
attempted theft 297; hijack 12 and three attempted hijacks, theft from warehouse 10, where a LGV must have been used to remove the goods and 15 deception incidents.
The types of goods that are stolen range from electronic or electrical goods (including mobile phones, computer equipment), clothes and shoes, food and beverages, household goods, alcohol and cigarettes and a whole variety of other items including metals, diesel vehicle fuel, plant and equipment.
It has previously been estimated that the average loss from each incident is well over £25,000 and the true cost to the UK economy of all road freight crime incidents is believed to be over £100 million per year, especially when taking account of hidden costs such as increased insurance premiums, management time and effort following an incident, claims investigation costs, lost profit opportunities and the increased probability of loss of a customer’s future business especial following a large loss.
A full copy of the TruckPol Annual Report 2010 can be downloaded from the TruckPol website www.truckpol.com. This website also contains details of how to join the TruckPol partnership; it’s ever growing list of supporters plus security recommendations and other relevant information – well worth visiting the site for regular updates and alerts.
What can companies do to protect the goods being carried, the trucks and the drivers from attack?
There is considerable amount of guidance available to help operators enhance their existing physical and procedural security precautions. Some of the most reasonable and possibly the best security guidance was published by the Home Office some years ago under the Title “Steer Clear of Truck Theft”. This guidance was developed by the Joint Action Group on Lorry Theft (JAGOLT) in 2001 but still holds good today. Copies of the Security Advices for commercial vehicle operators may be downloaded from www.truckpol.com .
The most cost effective recommendations include:
•Raise awareness of your drivers to the problem of tuck thefts and theft of loads together with the means to tackle the problem.
•Make sure your drivers have security awareness training including the need to constantly apply and enhance the precautions already in place.
•Ensure drivers only park-up overnight in recognised and secure truck parking areas rather than an isolated lay-by with no road lights and very few other parked vehicles.
•Install vehicle tracking systems that will monitor precisely where your vehicles are at all times, which might also be linked with a panic button in the cab that may be used by the driver in case of an attack.
•Regularly visit the TruckPol website and monitor the TruckPol Alerts, which provide information on current road freight criminal activity around the UK and follow the security guidance found on this website.
TruckPol, shares information between the police, other law enforcement agencies and participating industry partners and insurers on UK truck thefts and road freight crime to deliver solutions, minimise opportunities for criminals and reduce offences.
TruckPol helps by tackling truck and road freight crime as it has the ability to spot trends, assisting in identifying and prosecuting offenders, recovery of stolen goods and assists in co-ordinating, wherever possible, the fight against this type of criminal activities.
It is well known that organised criminals cross police force boundaries committing their crimes against unsuspecting lorry drivers and transport operators in a completely different part of the country and then returning to their area of residence with the booty. Cross border crime is known in police circles as Level Two criminality and requires the co-operation of a number of different Police Forces to tackle such crimes effectively. The ill-gotten gains can be used by the criminals, on some occasions, to provide funding for drugs, illegal immigrants, prostitution and other criminal activities.
Benefits – The benefits to transport operators, their customers (shippers or receivers of goods) and insurers in particular may be summarised:
•A more co-ordinated police response to lorry theft
•Access to vital information and intelligence
•Improvement in the investigation, detection, disruption and recovery of stolen goods.
•Raising awareness of the true scale of the problem of lorry or load theft in the UK.
•Provision of invaluable trend and pattern analysis, vital to theft prevention efforts.
•Provision of intelligence to Police and industry on the problem of, and solutions to road freight crime in this country.
•Single Points of Contact (SPOCs) in each police force ready and willing to assist TruckPol partners with their enquiries.
There are numerous examples of successful recoveries of stolen property, arrests and successful conviction of lorry thieves and disruption of criminal activities available from the annuals of TruckPol. Anyone interested should download the regular Alerts found on the TruckPol website.
Hijacks and Possible Bogus Police Checks
Criminals have been known on occasions to display blue flashing lights behind radiator grills and wear fluorescent yellow jackets and uniform style clothing to trick the lorry drivers to stop. They then frequently get the driver out of their cab by means of deception, saying there is something wrong with the vehicle, or they are doing a roadside check and if the driver resists they often resort to threats or actual violence. The drivers are then bundled into the boot of a car, taken many miles away from the scene of the incident and the lorry and its load are whisked away before anyone is aware of what has happened.
Organised gangs seem to know what is in the back of the lorries they attack. They gain inside information of the loads and the vehicle route the lorry will be taking. There is certain well known theft attractive or target goods including wines and spirits, tobacco products, metals – due to the high price being obtained for scrap metals in the Far East, Fashion items including garments and furs, mobile phones, audio-visual equipment, computer and photographic equipment.
However, almost anything will and regularly does get stolen including soap powder and toothpaste, the main criteria for the thief is: can the stolen goods readily be converted to cash – often by means of sale via cash and carry outlets, market stalls and clubs and pubs around the country. The other factor the criminals take into account, perhaps to a lesser extent, is can the goods be easily identified as having been stolen from the particular lorry in question. Without clear evidence, individual item bar codes, to trace the stolen property back to a specific stolen lorry load it becomes very difficult for the police to gather sufficient evidence to convict the suspects.
Unfortunately commercial vehicle drivers are sometimes subjected to attack while in their cabs. There is a general lack of safe and secure truck parking areas around the UK, it is reckoned that there are only a handful of sites which would meet police standards, truck drivers are unfortunately sometimes forced to use high risk lay-bys.
An in depth study by the author of this article on attacks on international HGV Drivers, commissioned by the International Road Transport Union (IRU) based in Geneva found that one in six drivers had been attacked during the previous five years, some with serious injuries and long lasting effects. Some 30 per cent of the attacked drivers had been attacked more than once, 21pc were physically assaulted and 60pc of the attacks targeted the vehicle and its load, whilst the remaining 40pc related to the theft of the driver’s personal belongings. Surprisingly 42pc of the attacks took place in truck parking areas, supporting the view that even purpose built supposedly secure lorry parks are not always safe places for the truck driver to park up to take their statutory breaks. 66pc of the reported attacks occurred between 10pm and 6am and 30pc of the attacked drivers did not report the incident to the police for a variety of reasons but mainly time and delivery pressures and belief that ‘nothing would happen anyway’.
Transport companies of course have a ‘duty of care’ to their employees (their drivers) and should undertake adequate risk assessments to ensure their drivers are made aware of the dangers of attacks and the need for their drivers to take all reasonable precautions, including the use of recommended security and theft prevention measures. The IRU Road Transport Security Guidelines are a set of detailed recommendations on improving day-to-day operations for managers of road transport companies, drivers, shippers/consignors and companies transporting dangerous goods by road. See IRU website www.iru.org for security recommendations and a copy of the Attacks report is available as a free download from: http://www.iru.org/index/bookshop-display-action?id=186
The current downturn in the economy has inevitably resulted in an increase in incidents as demonstrated by the TruckPol figures. It has also been well known for some time that foreign drivers entering the UK are frequently specifically targeted as easy prey of the organised road freight gangs. The foreign drivers invariably do not understand and are unaware of the risks of attack, they frequently do not speak English very well and therefore may find it difficult to call for assistance or report the incident to the police. They sometimes do not realise that their loads have been stolen or tampered with until they reach their destination, when the criminals are long gone.
Transport operators should ensure that adequate and regular risk assessments are in place to minimise the risk of attacks on their drivers, the loss of their vehicles and the valuable freight they carry. The lack of Home Office support to the TruckPol unit will potentially lead to a reduction in the excellent service the unit provides.
Frank Heinrich-Jones FCII, Wrightsure Insurance Group
Specialist Commercial Transport Insurance Brokers
Tel 01329 820768 Mobile 07778 460 398
E-mail: [email protected]
