Following the release of its quarterly report on truck crime between July and September 2007 TruckPol claims that the constant increase in the number of reported incidents is a positive thing: it is pleased with the procedures it has put into place to increase freight crime reporting from all 43 police forces. The third quarter of 2007 saw an 81.6% increase in vehicle and load losses. The value of stolen vehicles during this period was around £11.3m and the load value just under £9.5m.
Vehicle
thefts far outweighed any other type of crime during the three-month period with a total of 356 incidents reported to TruckPol. The second most common crime was theft from the vehicle. Next in line is other types of theft followed by attempted theft. The fact that hijacking even plays a part in this statistic is alarming, even though it makes up only 3% of the total.
Police will no doubt be monitoring the types of load being stolen to try to combat the problem most effectively. Top of the list of stolen items are household goods, which could be anything from furniture, kitchen equipment, toiletries and cleaning products. This is closely followed by electronics/electrical goods and alcohol.
Cigarettes are fairly low down in the pecking order as are fuel and HAZMAT/chemicals. In the case of fuel theft there have been a number of cases where the trailer has been stolen for its raw material value rather than for what was in it. This next statistic will no doubt be the
most useful to hauliers: where not to go! The three main areas reporting the majority of thefts were the Metropolitan area, the West Midlands, and Kent.
Some of the safer areas are Humberside, Nottinghamshire, South Yorkshire and Suffolk. TruckPol does, however, point out that police forces that submitted less than seven reports of truck crime are not shown in the graph. Along with worst hit areas, TruckPol has also published a list of specific hotspots:
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