Often, vehicle theft occurs due to opportunists spotting a ‘vulnerable vehicle’. Avoid leaving items such as wallets, mobile phones and luggage on display. If your vehicle has a portable navigation device, remove it from the windscreen and make sure to wipe away the suction marks left by the mount. If you tend to hide items under the seat or glove compartment, chances are someone could have seen you, try to take items with you where possible or place them in the boot of the vehicle before making your journey.
Recent data from Co-op Insurance revealed that nine of the ten hotspots for car crime in the UK are located in the capital, including the exclusive borough of Kensington and Chelsea. With this, it’s important you choose your parking space smartly. Search for areas that are well lit with high footfall. Even opportunists won’t take the risk for a small reward if they believe they are being watched.
This may seem obvious, but always ensure both doors and windows are locked. It doesn’t matter if you’re popping to the shop or parked outside your own home, its a simple prevention method that could go a long way. If your vehicle has a sunroof, ensure this is closed too, and if your drive a convertible, close the soft-top.
Technology plays a vital role in keeping your pride and joy safe. The use of vehicle trackers has fast become the most successful way of monitoring and securing your vehicle or fleet. Simplytrak can pinpoint your vehicle to the exact location, whilst in a remote location and have quickly become one the market leaders in automotive security with our excellent solutions and features. Our vehicle tracking system comes with standard features that enable you to drive down costs and improve efficiency. We also offer immobilisation features and cameras to increase vehicle and driver security.
Vehicle theft using the keys will negate your insurance. Simplytrak’s new SimplySecure system aims to prevent fleet drivers from ever leaving the keys in the ignition, even during quick drops. Whenever the driver’s door is opened with the keys still in the ignition, the horn will sound, hazard lights will flash and the vehicle is instantly immobilised. The vehicle cannot be stolen. To mobilise the vehicle again, the driver must contact head office who are able to re-mobilise the vehicle remotely.
SimplySecure Uses TurnKey Technology To:
Contact us today to learn more about protecting your vehicle!
Farms, by necessity, need a range of expensive machinery like tractors, quad bikes, etc. in order to carry out their tasks. A stolen vehicle can be a traumatic experience, costly and extremely inconvenient to say the least.
According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS) just 2 in 5 stolen vehicles return to their owner. Even if the vehicles return, they’re not likely to be a good condition. The West Yorkshire Police Vehicle Crime Unit officially advises owners to track their vehicles to avoid theft.
Simplytrak’s asset and vehicle tracking system provides the exact location of your vehicle at any given time. In addition, Simplytrak offers remote immobilisation features. They have the ability to stop your vehicle from running remotely – and start it again if required.Simplytrak’s Operations Manager Steve Brindle who guided the police with the tracker information, says “Speed is important as our client received the vehicle back without damages, ready to go. The investment in vehicle tracking has surely paid off for him. We would recommend anyone owning machinery to track their vehicles. It’s not expensive and it’s worth it.”
In line with commercial van thefts were 3513 reported tool thefts. Cambridge, Staffordshire, South Yorkshire were the hardest hit places. This figure is up 8% from 2017 – 2018. The theft of these tools is the backbone to people’s business, without the tools they do not make the money.
Our Business Development Manager Greg Halliday shares his key ways to protect your van contents:
For any camera, tracking or specific UV pen requirements please contact us at Simplytrak.
Car crime soared in the opening month of the year as a total of 375,001 vehicle incidents were recorded in England, Wales and Northern Ireland in 2019. January joins March, April, May and October as the top five worst months for vehicle crime but the opening month tops the list as the most prolific period.
A total of 11 percent of all vehicle crimes recorded in 2019 took place in January, according to UK police data analysed by Click4Reg.
Simple things such as removing any High Value Good from the vehicle – satnavs, money, phones, handbags or wallets will lower the chances of break ins. Here are three tips on how to further minimise the risk:
Installing a dash camera is a great deterrent these days as many use motion detection, or sleep mode recording.
With the advances in GPS technology we’re able to locate assets in more remote places such as container units, warehouses and in some cases underground car parks. Taking the advantage away from the thieves. Installing a recognised branded tracking unit can save you thousands on insurance and increase the chances of having the vehicle returned.
Adding the extra option to have the vehicle remotely immobilized is a very wise choice, the user is able to text the tracker to shut off the power on the next engine off cycle, meaning the vehicle will no longer start up, until the user sends another code to re-engage on recovery of the asset. This will limit the distance the vehicle can travel after theft. Allowing the owner to set up recovery option with the local police.
Vehicles with keyless entry / ignition will benefit from owning an RFID pouch. RFID pouches use electromagnetic fields to stop incoming and outgoing frequencies that thieves would usually use to open and get away with your vehicle.
RFID pouches are available from Amazon UK from as little as £5.”
Stats source: https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/cars/1224928/car-crime-january-vehicle-thefts-uk-thieves-criminals-regions-map
Airports are busy transport hubs. Take Doncaster Sheffield airport, one of our clients. Almost 1.5m passengers are set to fly this year alone. Thousands of vehicles operate landside and airside. Amongst the hustle and bustle, safety, security and efficiency are top priorities for airport operators. Simplytrak has developed a bespoke tracking and surveillance system – AIM – which is designed to mitigate runway incursion.
When an airplane lands, refuelers, interserve teams, and the swissport teams are moving on the airfield to carry out their jobs. Vehicles have to cross the runway – the area designated for landing and taking-off of aircraft. The UK Civil Aviation Authority has identified “runway incursion” as one of its priorities for safety action.
AIM’s unique geofencing solution was designed with airport runway requirements in mind. The airside incursion mitigation system has the ability to set up zones at any location on the airfield. By using these geo-fences, the system warns management if an airside vehicle is in or near a sensitive or restricted area. It also immediately warns the driver if there is the potential for a runway incursion. They must stop and contact air traffic control.
‘Communication’ is often cited as a contributing factor to incursion incidents. AIM’s system uses a GPS tracking system in conjunction with a GPS-enabled on-board micro-computer that keeps recording and alerting the driver when a zone-breech occurs– even if signal reception fails.
‘Human error’ also leads to accidents on the runway. Simplytrak’s AIM system provides an easy-to-use, accessible software and hardware to minimise the human factor element.
Airports don’t just have traffic on the airfield. Buses transport passengers and other items landside. Applying on-board vehicle surveillance in the form of cameras can provide visual record of how incidents happen.
Reviewing the camera footage to see why there have been delays or damage to the vehicles can identify problem areas. Data recorded by AIM and the cameras is digitally stored. This provides hugely valuable information to airports from a compliance perspective as well.
The list of compliance checks for airports is long. Simplytrak’s AIM system and all tracking and camera solutions provide an easy-to-use digital software that both drivers and management have access to. All data is stored digitally and immediately available to analyse. Ready for the next compliance check.
Some airports already use telematics to encourage improved driver behaviour and accountability. They present results in league tables highlighting the best and worst performing organisations. Adding a competitive element to the use of telematics has proven to be of great success in the transport sector as well.
Given airport’s specific requirements for safety, security and efficiency, Simplytrak is uniquely positioned to provide solutions.
To find out how our bespoke solutions can help you or to request a demo, get in touch with me.
Simplytrak, the East Yorkshire-based fleet management software company behind the device, are familiar with this method of vehicle recovery and specialise in helping their customers in similar situations. Ian Wood, Simplytrak’s new Managing Director, explains:
“Motion detection is one of the many options that come with our trackers and is becoming increasingly important for businesses who want to protect their vehicles.
“As well as detecting when the ignition is switched on and off, our trackers continue to track the location of a vehicle when the engine is off. This means we can still alert the owners when a vehicle is moving even if, like in this example, the vehicles are loaded onto a wagon and taken off site.”
On this occasion, the thieves thought they had done enough to disable the trackers by disconnecting them from the quad bike batteries, however, what they weren’t planning on was the emergency power supply that kept the trackers in full operational mode for long enough for the Misson Organic Dairying Ltd to spring into action.
The quad bikes were leased from Richard Platt Farming, who supplies various vehicles to agriculture businesses. Mr Platt said:
“The agriculture industry uses a range of vehicles such as quad bikes, which are often seen as an easy target for thieves.
“That’s why I recommend that all the vehicles I supply have the Simplytrak system installed, complete with motion detection – offering customers peace of mind that they’re getting a secure vehicle to reduce the risk of business disruption.”
Joel Rathbone from Misson Organic Dairying Ltd added:
“We’re extremely grateful to Richard Platt and the team at Simplytrak for helping us use the system to its full potential to recover these vehicles. This is a busy time of year for us and all our vehicles are important to the running of the farm. We’d be lost without them.”
Following the theft, motion detection alerts have been set up in case the thieves come back and try again. During set times, if the vehicles move when the farm know they shouldn’t be moving, an SMS/email alert will be sent to Mr Rathbone at the farm so they can act quickly to keep tracks on them.
According to the Rural Crime Report 2018 from NFU Mutual, the cost of agricultural vehicle theft and quad/ATV theft last year was £5.9m and £2.3m respectively, meaning much needs to be done to tackle this increasing threat.
Effective vehicle tracking is just one of the ways in which farmers should be looking to protect their assets in 2019.