In the wee hours of Wednesday, June, 1, thieves held up a driver carrying a load of high-end athletic shoes at gunpoint as he sat staged outside a distribution center in Memphis, Tennessee. The driver was removed from the truck and forced to open the trailer, and then multiple criminals offloaded approximately 100 cases of shoes into 3 separate vehicles before fleeing into the night.
Memphis represents a known hotspot for cargo theft, with an active, multijurisdictional cargo theft task force, said Scott Cornell, Second Vice President for Travelers, overseeing the insurer's cargo theft investigations unit. Athletic sneakers, furthermore, are a known prize for criminals looking for commodities with a definite market for resale. In hindsight, the driver could have done 1,000 things differently, but hindsight isn't preparedness. There's plenty any owner-operator can do to stay safe and protect the business, and most of all yourself.
Some companies push tech solutions to crime problems, some drivers swear by the guns they carry, and often enough law enforcement encourages operators to sit tight and pick up the phone when incidents occur.
"Awareness" isn't the whole answer, but it's most of it, according to Keith Lewis, vice president of operations at CargoNet, a leading cargo theft recording firm from Verisk.
"Safety and security awareness starts when the driver begins their day," said Lewis. "We talk a lot about highway safety, but security awareness is equal. If I allow myself or vehicle to be compromised, that can be as bad as a highway tragedy."
CargoNet works a lot with fleets, which have greater interest in cameras and tech and interconnected devices, but while an owner-op might not always personally be on the line for the contents of a trailer, the broad strokes of security awareness apply to all drivers equally.
"If someone can make entry to the cab, they access the driver's or driver’s family or pets, not only the load," said Lewis, who works with the Georgia Bureau of Investigations in addition to his work at CargoNet.
