A number of police operations took place in the UK in January to apprehend suspected van thieves active in West Yorkshire and Lancashire. Two sites in Lancashire, particularly, have been identified as the locations to which the vehicles, stolen from across the North of England, were brought in order to be broken into parts and then sold on.
A large number of spare parts such as engines, doors and panels have been found and were suspected to have originated from vehicles stolen from the Yorkshire and Humber region.
The news follows a trend of vehicle thefts active in the area going back at least as far as 2010—Ford Transit Vans being the most stolen vehicle throughout the UK. According to the news release, 478 Ford Transit Vans have been stolen between January 1, 2015 and December 11, 2015 alone, with an estimated value in excess of £7.5m (around €10m).
You might have a large or a small fleet, but your vehicles are always subject to a lot of expenses. Every day you have to deal with fuel, maintenance, safety and at the same time be able to cope with the need for hiring skilled drivers, for cutting costs, emissions and insurance premiums. The theft of a vehicle is generally an unforeseen issue but it could really cause problems within your organisation...
According to the Chief Superintendent of West Yorkshire Police, “These types of vehicles are often owned and utilised by small businesses and for some, the theft of a vehicle can result in the loss of contracts and future work.” It, therefore, becomes indispensable for fleets to have a strategy against theft.
How to prevent vehicle theft within your fleet then?
GPS tracking and fleet management solutions offer a great deal of advantages, one of which is the monitoring of fleet vehicles' movements. Preventing theft is usually not the main reason for installing a GPS tracking device or a fleet management system, but it offers the added bonus of tracking vehicles should they ever be stolen.
Systems like SynX can offer you a lot of obvious advantages, and some less obvious opportunities, for your business to develop and improve. If you want to know more on how to drive your business forward, contact us!
For more information about vehicle theft, see our blog posts: Vehicle theft: 2018 marks 82% growth in keyless van thefts.
