Did you know that nearly half of all new vehicles sold in the UK each year are bought buy hire companies?
That may not be so surprising when you learn that the UK vehicle rental industry has a total fleet of around 400,000 cars, vans and trucks — of which an estimated 1,500 are stolen every year.
Against this backdrop, it’s not hard to understand why the British Vehicle Rental and Leasing Association (BVRLA) is calling for more aggressive police action on vehicle crime, in the light of damning findings in a new report from Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary.
The report — which describes policing as a ‘postcode lottery’ — concluded that car crime is “on the verge of being decriminalised” because forces have “almost given up”, a finding with which Gerry Keaney, BVRLA chief executive, wholeheartedly agrees:
“Vehicle theft or fraud is one of the biggest problems facing the rental industry, but our members are largely being left to fend for themselves.”
“We need police forces to take cases of vehicle crime seriously and adopt a much more ‘joined-up’ approach to working with other constabularies.”
UK vehicle rental Operators undertake rigorous training of frontline staff and share access to an industry-wide database of ‘problem renters’, but the sector still suffers an estimated 1,500 vehicle thefts each year, according to the BVRLA, which says that vehicle rental operators are often targeted on a national basis by organised gangs.
“Rental companies are not time-wasters – they know when a vehicle has been stolen and are prepared to work closely with police to solve these crimes”, Keaney added.
To help address this problem, the BVRLA has developed its own Stolen Vehicle Reporting Guidelines to help members report thefts and ensure that police forces are provided with the right evidence and information to conduct an investigation.
The Association of Chief Police Officers and forces up and down the country have been made aware of this information, but it is falling between the cracks as more and more crime-reporting and administrative functions are outsourced, says the organisation.
You can access the full HMIC report into crime here.