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Home Office Minister Vernon Coaker announced a crackdown on truck crime in the form of AVCIS - the ACPO Vehicle Crime Intelligence Service - at the RHA's annual Security Seminar last week. The Parliamentary Under-secretary, who has responsibility for policing, security and community safety, said AVCIS will provide "incentives" to encourage criminal gangs that target trucks to inform on one another.

It will also seek to develop deterrents so the gangs are less likely to target LGVs in the  first place. The service will become operational on 15 December. AVCIS will also "take the profit out of the crime" too, Coaker declared, by seizing the criminals' assets. He accepted that the effects of truck crime were far-reaching. "Freight and lorry theft represents a significant threat to industry," he told delegates. "Behind the statistics there are real people, real families and real businesses."

But Coaker warned assembled operators that the battle against truck crime could only be won by closer industry co-operation, adding that there was no single easy way to defeat the gangs: "There is no one solution to tackling road freight [crime]." To address the problem facing the industry he told CM, the emphasis should be on "capture, punishment and deterrent". Also speaking at the seminar was David Ainsworth, Assistant Chief Constable of Kent Police, who is ACPO lead on vehicle crime and chair of JAGOLT (Joint Action Group on Lorry Theft). He admitted that police forces often  failed to share information, and that many officers lacked basic LGV knowledge.

"We'll create an expert guidance team to work with detectives at all levels, to tell them what the best investigative strategy is," he promised. "This is a complex field." TruckPol's Mark Galliers pointed to the "high-value/low-risk" nature of truck crime which encourages attacks by "very organised" gangs and by opportunists.

Barry Proctor, managing director of Barry Proctor Services, suggested that motorway matrix signs could be used to warn truck drivers when they are entering crime hot spots. He applauded the large number of police forces who attended the event - 18 were represented on the day. "Everything I heard was very positive, although I'm worried we'll be here in 12 months and things will still be as bad," he remarked. "And I'm concerned about the high number of drivers being physically assaulted."

Proctor, who often drives trucks himself, told CM that basic security procedures were frequently flouted: "I often see drivers arriving at supermarket RDCs, getting out of their cabs and leaving the engines ticking over." He welcomed the AVCIS initiative, particularly the establishment of the expert guidance team designed to educate police officers. "Although, to be honest, the police should be knowledgeable anyway," he pointed out.