Truck Theft Text Alert

scanny77 · **Posted:** Fri Dec 29, 2006 20:28

i hope you dont mind this Paul but it is quite important to us and it could ultimately fractionally assist road safety too

Truckersworld has almost got a new system up and running. when a truck is reported stolen, all drivers who have signed up will receive a text giving them details. the idea is that those contacted can keep an eye out for the stolen trucks while out and about doing what you do. the aims are to cut truck crime and reduce the risks to our friends and colleagues who are trying to earn a living. detail and info are available by following the link
http://www.truckersworld.co.uk/phpBB2/v ... m.php?f=57

anton · **Joined:** Sat Apr 30, 2005 22:02 **Posts:** 3266

If it is your own personal truck I would install a trackm8 or similar kit. you text "where" to the sim card and it texts back within 60 seconds. If I text "imobilise" mine cuts the fuel down to a trickle (with a nifty little fuel valve). If I set area= 10km and the car leaves the 10km area it sends me a text. the gps location plotted on the os map was within 2 parking spaces.

Also on security .... could GPS manufacturers be forced to put a locking pin number on gps kit that has to be unlocked every 48 hours to reduce the theft from cars and trucks.

scanny77 · **Posted:** Sat Dec 30, 2006 07:51

this is for all drivers, not owner drivers. im agency but i would still like to contribute to a reduction in truck crime. one day a friend of mine could be killed for their load. i will help to reduce that risk if its possible and this has the potential to do just that

Sixy_the_red · **Joined:** Sat Apr 23, 2005 08:22 **Posts:** 2618

400,000 pairs of eyes on the road is a pretty good way of finding a stolen motor...

SafeSpeed · **Posted:** Sat Dec 30, 2006 13:55

It sounds like a reasonable idea, but there are reasons to have a few reservations:

1) Receiving texts while driving isn't good, especially things like vehicle registrations that have to be read character by character, and also (since they are hard to remember) read again and again.

2) If you're in Scotland, It's not much use to get a message about a truck stolen in Cornwall 60 minutes earlier. How many trucks are stolen in a day? 5? 10? And how many of them could possibly be in the same area as the receipient of the text?

3) If the scheme was effective (and with ANPR rolling out) professional thieves will do their dirty dead with untracable numberplates on hand. So a description of the truck would be far better. But with many trucks in fleets, the description will match possibly hundreds of unstolen vehicles.

4) How many pairs of eyes can Truckersworld activate? Could an organisation like Crimestoppers help? Even if Truckersworld gets (wild guess) 10,000 signed up, what percentage of those are actually on the road when the message comes in? 25%?

5) With speed limiters, the number of same-direction vehicles that you get to see isn't very large - the bandit vehicle might be 2 miles ahead for 250 miles and you would probably never know.

6) Is it possible to see enough of an opposite direction vehicle on a motorway?

It's a good idea, but it needs a lot of thinking through. If the messages could be regionalised, that would be a massive boost.

scanny77 · **Posted:** Sat Dec 30, 2006 15:48

i understand what you are saying Paul but we do have one big weapon to our advantage. recognition. trucks are not like cars with regards to them all looking the same. the average trucker will look at a truck and instantly know the make and model. then there is of course the colour scheme. again, many of us can instantly tell who the truck belongs to. that only leaves the reg no to identify it.
bear in mind that there are only so many places that a truck can go and where a truck goes, a driver goes. if the driver happens to be one of those signed up then we have a sighting. a 999 call (as recommended by one of our members who is a traffic cop) will take care of the rest.

concerns have been raised about people getting txts while they are asleep but to be honest, i cant see a way around that. i myself work irregular hours so i understand how hard it would be to keep track of when i am on the road. i dont know how this is all going to work as i have not been part of the setting up but i would imagine that it will be largely automated ie the theft is reported to the police and they will contact whoever is controlling the text system and have it sent out to us. one way around it is for the drivers to turn off the message tone when they go to bed. it is perhaps a minor inconvenience but no more so than a mate sending you a message

scanny77 · **Posted:** Sun Feb 25, 2007 16:55

the server has been changed. this is the new link
http://forum.truckersworld.co.uk/viewforum.php?f=57

scanny77 · **Posted:** Sun May 13, 2007 13:00

stackmonkey · **Joined:** Mon Mar 15, 2004 16:02 **Posts:** 372

scanny77 wrote:

trucks are not like cars with regards to them all looking the same. the average trucker will look at a truck and instantly know the make and model.

I'm sorry but :rotfl:

This obviously works in both directions :lol:

Most car drivers will not have the faintest idea on distinguishing between the various makes/models of trucks, but any with the remotest interest in cars can know make/model at a glance. To us, virtually all trucks look the same.

scanny77 · **Posted:** Sun Jun 17, 2007 15:47

we have far fewer to distinguish between though. there are only about 8 big players in the truck industry and they have 2 or 3 cabs each. there are ony 20 - 25 different types of truck cab and most are instantly recognisable. in fact, scania only make one cab and its lousy :lol:

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