{"id":6602,"date":"2014-09-05T13:07:04","date_gmt":"2014-09-05T13:07:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/?p=6602"},"modified":"2014-09-05T13:07:04","modified_gmt":"2014-09-05T13:07:04","slug":"rental-companies-demand-police-action-on-vehicle-thefts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/archives\/6602","title":{"rendered":"Rental companies demand police action on vehicle thefts"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Did you know that nearly half of all new vehicles sold in the UK each year\u00a0are bought buy hire companies?<\/p>\n<p>That may not be so surprising when you learn that the UK vehicle rental industry has a\u00a0total fleet of around 400,000 cars, vans and trucks &#8212; of which\u00a0an estimated 1,500 are stolen every year.<\/p>\n<p>Against this backdrop, it&#8217;s not hard to understand why the British Vehicle Rental and Leasing\u00a0Association (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.bvrla.co.uk\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">BVRLA<\/a>) is calling for more aggressive police action on vehicle crime, in the light of damning findings in a new report from Her Majesty&#8217;s Inspectorate of Constabulary.<\/p>\n<p>The report &#8212; which describes policing as a &#8216;postcode lottery&#8217; &#8212;\u00a0concluded that car crime is &#8220;on the verge of being decriminalised&#8221; because forces have &#8220;almost given up&#8221;, a finding with which Gerry Keaney,\u00a0BVRLA chief executive, wholeheartedly agrees:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u00a0&#8220;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.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe need police forces to take cases of vehicle crime seriously and adopt a much more \u2018joined-up\u2019 approach to working with other constabularies.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>UK vehicle rental Operators undertake rigorous training of frontline staff and share access to an industry-wide database of \u2018problem renters\u2019, 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.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cRental companies are not time-wasters \u2013 they know when a vehicle has been stolen and are prepared to work closely with police to solve these crimes\u201d, Keaney added.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>You can access the\u00a0full HMIC report into crime <a href=\"http:\/\/www.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk\/hmic\/publication\/core-business\/\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Vehicle crime is on the verge of being decriminalised, according to a new report by the official UK police inspectorate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7],"tags":[1866,1431],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6602"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6602"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6602\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6603,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6602\/revisions\/6603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}