The economy may be down, with construction continuing to decline, but incidences of construction equipment theft have held fairly steady, according to a recent study conducted by LoJack Corp., manufacturer of stolen vehicle recovery devices. The company’s eighth annual “Construction Equipment Theft Study” analyzed recovery reports on stolen vehicles protected by LoJack systems in 26 states from January 2008 to December 2008.
More than $15.5 million in stolen construction equipment was recovered by the company in 2008, down slightly from $18 million in 2007. Equipment theft costs construction companies an estimated $1 billion per year in lost assets, according to the National Insurance Crime Bureau (NICB). However, according to a recent NICB study of heavy equipment thefts (comprising construction and farm equipment) nationwide from 1999 through 2007, overall incidences have steadily decreased since 2005. The NICB study also found that the majority of heavy equipment theft occurred in southern states; Texas, Florida, and North Carolina comprised 29 percent of total heavy equipment thefts from 1999 through 2007.
There’s no protection in numbers or size; small contractors need to worry about equipment theft as much as large companies. “All types of construction companies have been targeted, including [construction equipment] rental companies,” says Jeremy Warnick, LoJack’s assistant manager of corporate communications.
The most frequently stolen types of equipment, according to LoJack’s report, are loaders (including backhoe, skip, wheel, and track loaders); light utility and work trucks and trailers; generators, air compressors, and welders; skid steers; and forklifts and scissor lifts. California ranked first among states with the highest incidences of construction equipment theft, followed in order by Florida, Texas, Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, New Jersey, New York, Illinois, and Maryland. In 97 percent of the cases LoJack studied, stolen equipment was recovered in the same state in which the theft occurred and was found either in a storage facility or in use at another local jobsite.
Some jobsites offer environments friendly to thieves, making it easier for them to steal valuable equipment. “Physical site security is a major issue, and we try to emphasize its importance,” Warnick says. “But there aren’t enough owners fencing in their equipment or parking them close enough together, or simply communicating with law enforcement to request frequent patrols.”
Thefts generally occur over weekends on empty jobsites, particularly at sites where equipment isn’t protected by a fence or immobilized. Organized crime continues to be a driving force in construction equipment theft, as poor site security, lack of equipment identification records, easily accessible cabs, and the use of common keys all make it easy for thieves to acquire and sell stolen equipment, LoJack reports.
In addition to enclosing equipment inside locked fences, LoJack recommends installing security cameras and motion sensors on jobsites and “circling the wagons”: parking equipment in a circle with smaller machines in the center and chaining them together. But increasing jobsite security is just one step toward preventing equipment theft and increasing the likelihood of recovery if equipment is stolen. Equipment owners should label all machines with unique identifying numbers that can’t be easily removed and keep detailed inventory records of a machine’s make, model, year, identification numbers, and purchase date, as well as the serial numbers of major components and parts.
Owners also should consider using wheel locks, fuel shutoffs, ignition locks, or battery disconnect systems and eliminating the practice of using a common key for multiple machines, LoJack suggests.Registering machines in a national ownership database, such as the National Equipment Register (NER), a nationwide service provider for equipment owners, may increase the chances of recovering stolen equipment. NER also offers equipment owner and operator guidelines for increasing security and preventing theft. NER’s fourth-quarter 2008 “Equipment Theft Quarterly” newsletter offers some helpful tips on what to do if your company becomes the victim of equipment theft.
According to LoJack, in a survey of 219 equipment owners it conducted with the NICB, 71 percent reported they had experienced equipment theft. Of those owners, 29 percent said they had been victims of equipment theft five or more times; 24 percent of the equipment stolen from these respondents was not insured.
