The final countdown to Christmas has officially begun... with gifts stacked under the tree and Christmas shopping loaded in car boots, the festive period can be a prevalent time for thieves to strike.

When it comes to security, you could be forgiven for focusing solely on your home at Christmas time. But it's important not to neglect your car during the festive period. Extra vigilance is required to keep your vehicle secure at Christmas...
 

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UK construction sites are increasingly being targeted by thieves who recognise the financial value of plant machinery.

Smaller items of plant equipment such as mini excavators and generators are often stolen from contract sites outside of working hours or whilst being hired out. Consequently, many plant hire firms are now investing in additional security measures such as on-site cameras, perimeter fences and tracking devices to keep their vehicles safe from theft.

We received a call early in the morning about the theft of an Ifor Williams trailer from a Manchester based construction firm.

We remotely traced the trailer to the Port of Liverpool. It's location meant we had to act fast so our recovery team headed straight to the scene. Using RF scanning equipment to pick up a signal, they began a thorough investigation of the area.

The theft of high value machinery can be seriously damaging for small forestry companies. These types of crimes often involve significant damage to the property where the machine is stored, as well as additional losses such as chainsaws, climbing kits and other vital equipment. To compound this issue, the remote rural locations where forestry equipment is stored, results in elongated police response times.

It’s been well documented that vehicle theft is on the rise. The Association of British Insurers paid out £108million in Q1 of 2019, £1.2million every day… and the home office has recorded a 50% increase in vehicle thefts over the last five years. 

Despite all this doom and gloom, Sure-Track has operated at a 90% recovery rate over the last 14 years. 

A worrying half of the new cars launched this year have been given a poor security rating after Thatcham Research found their keyless entry systems could easily be bypassed by thieves.

The Association of British Insurers also said its members paid out a record £376m for car thefts in 2018 with a car being stolen every six minutes in the UK.

Thatcham Research has been at the forefront of vehicle security since the 1990s when it introduced the New Vehicle Security Assessment (NVSA) to address levels of vehicle crime and launched the Thatcham Categories for Alarm and Immobiliser systems that is now established as an industry benchmark. 

As of 1 January 2019, all Thatcham Research security product assessments have been conducted under a new ‘Thatcham Security Certifications’ brand, an overarching service. The certification provides reassurance around the functionality, design and performance of alarms, immobilisers and tracking systems.  

With the festive season fast approaching… we can almost hear the clinking of glasses at the endless Christmas parties to be taking place up and down the country.

That’s why, the owners of a beautiful Piaggio Ape Prosecco Bar were left in a fizz, when they discovered their bar had been stolen from a ‘secure’ storage compound.

Back in May we received a call from a long-standing customer, who reported that one of their vans had been stolen from a construction site in West London. We immediately got to work on the recovery, and put the tracker into alarm mode.

Established in 1974, Chasetown Civil Engineering is a market leader specialising in infrastructure, groundworks and related building services with project values ranging from £100,000 to £50million. 

Established in 1865, Bethell has grown from a small, family-owned, firm to one of the most successful construction services companies in the UK. Bethell have a clear vision [and a strong set of values] - one of the most important being to 'Put Safety first and ensure all our projects are delivered accident-free'.

Getting the best of all worlds is the ultimate goal for any manufacturer, but just how achievable is it, in reality? Unlike most tracking companies, Sure-Track actually manufacture our own devices. 

 As the Cub Scout motto says, you should always 'Be Prepared', which is just what a Scout group in the South East ensured when they fitted their minibus with a Sure-Track MT3. 

Earlier this week, Sure-Track received a call from a concerned Patrol Leader who discovered the troop's White Ford Transit Minibus, worth £15,000, had been stolen. The Sure-Track bureau assured the Patrol Leader that we 'promise to do our best'... and that's exactly what we did! 

'You're only as good as your last performance.'

We all know the expression... and it's one that we live by here at Sure-Track. So it's always great to get some more successful recoveries under our belts. 

September was a busy month for Sure-Track, our finders successfully recovered five stolen assets with a combined value of over £100,000. Further cementing our belief that our vehicle tracking and recovery solutions are the very best on the market!