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TV crime reporter Roger Cook chaired the Road Haulage Association's sixth security seminar: Combating Freight Crime. This included a video address from Vernon Coaker, an Under-Secretary of State for the Home Office, who hinted at a policy change long lobbied for by RHA and Truckpol. '"to make it easier to differentiate in statistics and intelligence the theft of a phone from the cab from the theft of an entire load".

Many speakers said police targets give no more credit for solving cargo theft than for a car break-in, and that they produce misleading statistics. The government claims a 38% reduction in vehicle crime, but this masks a 10% rise in truck crime. John Wake a spokesman for the Association of Chief Police Officers says: "There are no properly collated figures for truck-related crime."(Estimated at £125 million a year in the UK, averaging £35,000 per incident.) The offence often falls across police force borders. Truckpol has got all forces supplying data, and has introduced standard reporting procedures, but often has to intervene to make them share intelligence.

The RHA chief executive, Roger King, says the forthcoming Driver CPCs were an opportunity for a truck security module. The 150 delegates at the seminar received practical advice on fighting 'diversion theft,' whereby organised gangs get information by following lorries and delivery patterns. By a series of apparently  innocent phone calls, they build up an information portfolio, eventually persuading the driver or traffic clerk to divert the load to a new destination.

The A14 was cited as an example of many security problems. "There are insufficient lay-bys, and little secure overnight parking. The most regulated industry in the UK has nowhere for its drivers to stop," said security consultant David Ryan. A recurrent theme was authorities failing in their duty of care to drivers, with poor infrastructure threatening security and profitability. Concluding, Roger Cook urged the Home Office to put road freight crime back on the agenda, and for local and national government to provide secure overnight parking.