PUTTING THE BRAKE ON LORRY THIEVES
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BY E. JAMES MILLEN MANY firms deserve to have their lorries nicked. This is the only conclusion I can draw from the reluctance of many hauliers to have a warning device or immobilizer fitted tq. their vehicles and other evidence they display of their apparent indifference to the possibility of losing their loads.
Do hauliers make full use of lorry parks?—do they hell! And do they co-operate in schemes which public spirited people take the trouble to devise for their benefit?—well, a few do but the vast majority do not.
Take the Vehicle Observer Corps, for instance. This body, the "brainchild" of Mr. J. T. Brown, an Atlas Express Co. Ltd. executive, was set up in 1962 to try to cut down the large losses being sustained from lost loads. It now has, I understand, quite a reasonable membership—but that membership could be much greater, and if it were the body itself would, of necessity, become more efficient.
But, so Jack Brown told me, one haulier had two vehicles re• covered for him by the VOC within a fairly short period—and when asked if he would care to join the organization promptly declined. So much for trying to help some people!
For a man of Jack Brown's enthusiasm this must be very galling. He knows that the Observer Corps is doing a good job, but is acutely conscious of the fact it could do better. He put it to me this way: "Since the reward scheme came in we have had more success. But I am not satisfied with the efficiency of the scheme. If everyone put more effort into it we could bring thieving to a stop.
"Personally, I've recovered nine vehicles and we've recovered 81 vehicles in all since the Corps' inception. But remember that the most effective Vehicle Observer Corps would be one that never got called out."
The reward scheme referred to by Mr. Brown came into effect last year. Under this a sum of £10 is paid to any patrol responsible for the recovery of a stolen vehicle and its load or a substantial part of that load. A reward of £2 is paid for the recovery of a vehicle from which the load has been removed or which was empty when stolen. The reward fund was set up by the RHA and organizations which contribute to it are the Accident Offices Association, Securicor Ltd., the TRTA and the RHA itself. As has been said, this system of rewards has proved effective though, it might be thought, the cash incentive is not great. On this point Jack Brown observes: "The reward can't be too much— otherwise there would be a tendency for a driver to lose a lorry to get paid for finding it." On the general question of lorry thefts he seemed in no doubt that in a high percentage of cases drivers are in on it. "Most drivers are honest" he said, "but particularly in high-jacking drivers are often involved."
In Mr. Brown's view great care should be taken in employing a driver. "The only record you can recognize as right is his photo graph. His name could be right or not right, his papers can be crooked. All of our drivers are photographed on application. This is much easier now that Polaroid Land cameras are available (these produce instant pictures). Unfortunately there has been a shortage of drivers which has led to a tendency for some firms to relax precautions."
Jack Brown, as you may have gathered, is a straightforward man with down-to-earth views. He can be regarded as the lead ing light in the "beat the lorry thieves" campaign. In his capacity as chairman of the vehicles' security committee of the RHA he acts with considerable strength, vigour and selflessness.
He regularly lectures and writes articles for the Press on vehicle security and makes occasional appearances on TV. Whatever he makes from these sources he contributes to the reward fund. Not surprisingly he has close contacts with the police. He is large, quiet—and looks like a policeman.
A most important point is that goods in transit worth about £5m. are stolen in Britain every year. A great deal of this mer chandise is "lifted" in the Metropolitan Police district. In this area in 1965 there were 4,670 recorded cases of thefts from commercial vehicles, representing a value of £791,250. It might be expected that the incidence of thefts would be greatest in congested and dock areas and this is certainly the case. Many loads are lost in Southampton, Cardiff, Liverpool and Glasgow.
A study of vehicle theft figures in the London area for the years 1962, 1963, 1964 and 1965 seems to me to show no par ticular trend—the number of reported cases in 1965 being not substantially less than those in 1962. But the fact that theft figures have not increased greatly may well be due in no small measure to the efforts of the Vehicle Observer Corps.
Another most interesting phenomenon which points to the efficacy of the VOC is that which has been alluded to by Mr. A. R. Butt, chairman of the RHA—namely that there are encouraging signs in London that criminals are more reluctant to adopt their usual practice of stealing a vehicle and transferring the load to another a short distance away and are resorting to other methods most commonly hi-jacking.
These signs appear to be supported by available statistics which show that the value of merchandise hi-jacked in the Metropolitan area in 1965 was approximately 60 per cent greater than the figure for the previous year---£290,450 as against £175,100.
Official procedure
The administration of the Vehicle Observer Corps is quite straightforward--a reflection indeed of its prime administrator. The procedure to be followed has been set out for members on a form as follows: 1. Scheme to operate between hours of 7 a.m.-7 p.m.
2. Information Room, New Scotland Yard, will inform the central control point of all loaded vehicles stolen in the London area, giving time of theft, description of vehicle, with registration number, name of owner, make of vehicle, and whether flat or box.
3. The central control point, on receipt of message, will send out patrol and pass information to the group control points in the areas affected.
4. The group control points will send out patrols, and pass on information to the other members of the group; in addition, the group control point will send a patrol to the area where the theft occurred and telephone direct to the member nearest that point.
5. Each patrol will cover the area allocated to it once, then telephone or report to its base and if the vehicle is not reported found, will again patrol the area. The patrol will then return to its base.
6. Each firm will maintain a log of times of messages received and action taken.
7. If the stolen vehicle is seen the patrol will dial 999 and ask for police, Scotland Yard, and report the location of the vehicle giving details of the vehicle, and a description of any other vehicle or persons who may be involved.
8. If the stolen vehicle is seen on the move it should be followed until help can be obtained by picking up a patrolling police officer or by dialling 999 as above.
9. Information should be given through the nearest telephone whether public call box, house, shop, in business premises or police box. Notification of a lorry theft is received in the Atlas Express Eurofreight building in the form of a telex message from Scotland Yard. These messages are hurried over to the firm's traffic office, referred to in the listed "points of procedure" as the central control point, whereupon an Atlas patrol is immediately sent out to hunt the stolen vehicle and information is flashed to group patrol points in relevant areas.
The groups referred to above each contain a number of haulage firms which are based in certain areas of the metropolis. There are 17 such groups, which are of course constituted on a geographical basis. Each group has a "leader" or group control point, the names and telephone numbers of which are set out on a chart on the wall of the central control point office. The group leaders play a most important part in the "hunt" procedure, since they will send out patrols and also be responsible for notifying other members in their area of any theft.
Apart from alerting group leaders of a "pinch" in their areas, the central control point as a matter of routine immediately put through telephone calls to five bases which have radio contacts. These radio contacts—BTC Police (information room), Securicor Ltd., Henry Streeter Ltd., Air Call (West End) and Air Call (City) duly put through calls to all vehicles on the road which have their equipment installed. These arrangements ensure that within minutes of the telex message being received from Scotland Yard at the central control point a wide spread of "spotters" are scanning the Greater London area in quest of the stolen vehicle.
Air Call, incidentally, is a most useful radio-telephone secretarial service operated by Telephone Answering Services Ltd., of Leicester. Fitted to a vehicle at no capital cost it forms a link between it and a central exchange. Messages can be relayed to a vehicle or held, according to instruction, whether or not the driver is in his vehicle at the time the original message is flashed through. This service is now operational in Leicester, Bradford/ Leeds, Manchester/Liverpool, London, Bristol/Cardiff, Birmingham, Chesterfield, and Glasgow. Air Call, I understand, is now generally available to all who require such a service for a low monthly fee plus a small fitting charge.
My visit to the Vehicle Observer Corps headquarters was made on a cold Friday morning. It was early because it had to be—most thefts take place at night or in the early hours of morning. Normally there are three or four telex messages from Scotland Yard at the central control point when "business" begins at 7 a.m.
Unhappily, on the very morning I chose to take up the chase there was no quarry. This was a disappointment, but didn't really matter too much since a couple were "manufactured" (by kind permission of Atlas Express) and I had the chance to go out on the hunt.
My "observing" was done with Ray Peaper, senior traffic officer of Atlas, who soon made it clear that there wasn't much about this game that he didn't know. He drove slowly along many of the "likely" back streets of south-east London, the while keeping in touch with central control by means of radio.
Archways (of which there are many in this part of London) and building sites came in for particular scrutiny. After a fairly extensive search a "stolen" lorry was sighted. Ray Peaper reported the "kill" and took me back to base. For this particular labour he probably received no reward—though I have no doubt that he deserved one. But the strong impression I gained was that his type of man would not worry too much about that.
If it should happen that any vehicle operator reading this might feel moved to make some small contribution to the cause of recovering stolen vehicles by becoming a member of the Vehicle Observer Corps, I would earnestly ask him to contact the RHA's Vehicles' Security Committee, Roadway House, 22 Upper Woburn Place, London WCI or Mr. J. T. Brown, ao Atlas Express Co. Ltd., Canon Beck Road, London SE16.
It should be stressed that VOC activities are far from being confined to the London area. Volunteer Corps, similar to those set up in London, are already active in many large towns and cities including Glasgow, Leeds, Manchester, Nottingham, Derby, Scunthorpe, Grimsby, Birmingham, Oxford and Bristol.
So no matter in what part of the country you may operate it is virtually certain that you can be of useful service. Remember that in the long run more members will mean fewer thefts.
Who knows—the next vehicle stolen could be yours!