According to the commercial drivers' International Road Transport
Union, the IRU, 17 percent of Europe's long-haul truck drivers are
victims of robbery during work-hours at some time over a five-year
period. The robberies often take place at lay-bys. The thieves make
off with everything from expensive electronic goods and tobacco to
chocolate and shaving cream. According to Europol, goods to the
value of about 8.2 billion euros are stolen every year in Europe.
If all the peripheral costs are added in, such as repairs,
replacement freight and police man-hours, the figure rises
significantly.
"These attacks are a serious threat to the safety and security that
commercial vehicle drivers have the right to enjoy in the pursuit
of their profession. They are also a threat to the haulage
companies and the high-value goods for which they are responsible
while carrying out their haulage duties. Ultimately, even the end
customers suffer as a result of delays caused by vanishing
cargoes," says Per-Anders Grösfjeld, marketing manager for
transport information systems at Volvo Trucks.
It might be tempting to believe that Western Europe is a relatively
safe place compared to other parts of the world, but Europol's
statistics reveal that many parts of Western Europe are high-risk
zones with regard to transport thefts, on a par with countries such
as Russia, Mexico and Brazil.
About ten years ago, the most common site of thefts in the
transport chain was cargo terminals and warehouses. The solution
was walls, fences and rigorous checks and controls, but that only
meant that the problem shifted. Now it is the roads that have
become the workplace of organised crime, and their victims are the
long-haul trucks. It is out on the road that the cargo is by far at
its greatest risk of being stolen, according to Europol.
The perpetrators are often international criminal organisations but
despite this, cross-border police cooperation has been rather
ineffectual. Statistics showing crimes against the transport
industry are unreliable since the police do not regard transport as
a separate category, nor do they coordinate actions against this
new type of organised crime. However, in the wake of the
sky-rocketing increase in roadside piracy and the increasingly
frequent violence used against drivers, the EU is now taking the
initiative.
Anne E Jensen, substitute member in the EU Parliamentary Transport
Committee, has been campaigning for a long time for the problem to
be tackled with determination.
"The long-haul truck is a very vulnerable part of the transport
chain and that means, not least, a major risk for the drivers," she
says, explaining that the increased risk level in the profession
may cause fewer people to choose to become drivers.
"And if road transport slumps, that's going to be a serious problem
for growth and for society in general," says Jensen.
For the past few years no, she and the EU are working to build safe
and secure truck-stops for transport industry drivers. It is
through SETPOS, a joint organisation bringing together the various
relevant parties, that roadside breaks are going to be made safer.
The truck-stop sites are fenced in and patrolled so that the
drivers can sleep safely and soundly without having to worry about
protecting their cargoes or being victims of violent crime. At
present there are five such truck-stops. There are two in Germany,
one in Britain, one in France and one in Belgium.
"But more are on the way. In Europe alone, at least 200 secure
truck-stops are needed," says Anne E Jensen.
Organised crime has discovered that roadside theft involves a low
risk at the same time as the potential gain is huge. That is why it
is increasingly common for entire rigs to be hijacked, often at
gunpoint. A big cargo is stolen quickly and easily, and in less
than an hour the cargo can be reloaded onto other vehicles and
vanish from the scene. The police have no chance of catching up.
This is therefore an area that Volvo Trucks is addressing. As a
truck manufacturer, the company is tackling the problem from the
dual perspectives of the driver and the vehicle. In order to
safeguard goods transport, Volvo Trucks has taken the first step by
launching Security Service, a supplement to the Dynafleet transport
information system in Europe. With this system, the truck is under
constant surveillance. Working together with Securitas, Volvo
Trucks offers subscribers a service whereby they can press an alarm
button in an emergency situation to alert the police or Securitas
personnel.
"However, there is so much more the industry has to do to tackle
this problem seriously," says Jonas Thorngren, transport security
expert at the Volvo Group.
Together with an outside partner, Volvo Trucks is now developing a
lockable fifth wheel which can be remotely controlled, thus
preventing the trailer from being separated from the truck and
disappearing.
The next stage in the security system provides protection from
theft of the whole rig. With the help of a manual alarm or a system
that triggers an alert as soon as the truck passes a predetermined
geographic perimeter, it will be possible to either prevent the
truck from starting after it stops, or to gradually restrict its
speed until it comes to a complete halt. Since the driver has no
control over any part of this process, his or her safety is not
jeopardised.
"Having said that, the solution lies in more than just technology.
The driver's knowledge and his or her routines are immensely
important," says Jonas Thorngren.
According to a new EU directive, every driver must undergo at least
35 hours of training within a five-year period. Volvo Trucks has
developed a training programme that puts the focus on the driver's
safety awareness. The spotlight is both on increasing know-how
about crime situations and thus reducing the risk of being the
victim of crime, and also reducing the risk level if anything goes
wrong when you are the victim of a crime.
"When the criminals realise that the security systems surrounding
the entire rig force them to take ever-larger risks, and the driver
is in no personal danger him or herself, we feel that few criminals
will feel it's worth the effort," says Jonas
Thorngren.
Text: Mats Tiborn
Hubert Seufert loves driving trucks and has been doing just that
for 30 years. But after he was drugged and robbed at a truck stop
in France a couple of years ago, he is more cautious.
"Today all truck drivers are in constant fear of being robbed," he
says.
He woke up because it was so hot in his truck cab. It was difficult
to breathe, airless. Huber Seufert, who has not touched a drop of
alcohol in years, says that it felt like he was suffering from a
huge hangover. When he crawled out of the cab, he felt as though he
had no real contact with his limbs, it was difficult to think
properly. And there was a terrible smell in his nostrils.
"I wasn't a human being. It was as though the world around me
didn't exist, and initially I didn't even notice my colleague who
was standing outside my truck cab shouting ‘I've been robbed, my
boss is going to sack me'," he recalls.
A minute later Hubert Seufert discovered the hole cut into the side
of his cargo platform tarp, and realised that he too had been the
victim of robbery. The incident took place two years ago but Hubert
Seufert remembers it all very clearly. How he suddenly snapped
awake and rushed to the rear of his truck, only to be greeted by
the broken seal and open doors. Five pallets of DVD players were
missing.
It was ten in the morning and Hubert Seufert was already five hours
late. Hubert, who has never overslept once in his life, realised
that Philips in Germany were going to have to wait a long time for
delivery of their cargo from the warehouse in France.
"I'd stopped at a lay-by on the border with Belgium to have a nap.
Both my mobile phone and alarm clock were set to wake me up at
five, but I heard nothing," he says.
Not really so strange bearing in mind that the robbers had sprayed
gas through the side window that Hubert Seufert had left open to
let in fresh air. When the French police arrived, they explained
that he'd been lucky - it was his open window that ensured his
survival. If the gas had not been diluted by the fresh air, he
could have died inside his cab. Today Hubert Seufert says that his
stomach still turns at the thought of what happened.
"I avoid sleeping in any lay-by without a security patrol, and to
make things easier my boss has installed a climate unit on the roof
of the cab so that the windows can stay firmly shut," he explains,
adding that most drivers have been involved in incidents of one
kind or another. Hubert Seufert relates that he has colleagues who
have been forced out of the driver's seat at gunpoint and had to
stand helplessly by while their entire rig was hijacked, and that
there is almost no truck driver who does not have a nagging sense
of constant fear at the back of his mind.
Nowadays he makes sure that he always stops at refuelling stations
with overnight facilities (autohof). He also makes sure he
blocks the doors using a belt so that they cannot be opened from
the outside. What is more, he does not like the cargo platform to
be sealed since that only advertises that the truck is carrying a
valuable load.
So what happened after the robbery? Philips received compensation
through their insurance company but Hubert Seufert says that he has
no idea what happened with the robbers.
"I've no idea. I don't even know who they were, although I suspect
a group of young lads who were hanging around in the lay-by. They
were walking around asking all the drivers for food, but I suspect
what they were really doing was to check out the cargoes. It's
important to be alert," says Hubert Seufert.
NAME: Hubert Seufert
AGE: 54
YEARS IN THE PROFESSION: 30
HOME: Castell, population 350, close to Würzburg in southern
Germany
EMPLOYER: Gegner Transporte
DRIVES: Volvo FH12, Globetrotter