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The European Secure Vehicle Alliance

About E.S.V.A.

ESVA¹s mission is to seek the reduction of vehicle crime and fraud in the UK and Europe.

This will be achieved by :

(1) Constructing a comprehensive network for shared learning, evaluation and action.
(2) Information Exchange
(3) Campaigning

ESVA will learn from the evolution of PACTS (Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety) which has been established for 20 years. One of the fundamental components of ESVA is its standing as an Associate Parliamentary Group and Lord Brougham and Vaux is chairman, with Nigel Evans MP and Steve McCabe MP as vice chairmen.

ESVA¹s first meeting was in March 1992 when representatives from organisations associated with vehicle crime met in the House of Lords. A Steering Group and Working Group structure has evolved and ESVA changed its status to a company limited by guarantee in November 1996.

There is one major Working Group with a brief to enhance the attitudes of young adults towards responsible driving which meets bimonthly and a series of plenary meetings and conferences.

Mid Year review 2006

EUROPEAN SECURE VEHICLE ALLIANCE

MID – YEAR REVIEW     JULY 2006         

Vehicles enjoy universality in that they impact on all aspects of our lives – be it economic, social or political.              From a ‘quality of life’ perspective, environmental pollution is one concern, which will not be addressed, in this review that focuses on social and community cohesion issues.

Vehicles offer significant positive benefits in terms of providing individual freedom and flexibility whilst they have a negative impact when they are perceived to represent symbols within the community of crime, disorder and a lack of community cohesion, e.g. speeding, badly parked, broken glass, abandoned etc.

Perhaps the first time that vehicles attracted significant political attention within a crime and disorder, as opposed to speeding, context was around 1990 when attention was given to ‘display driving’ of stolen vehicles around notorious housing estates across England and the insurance industry were expressing concerns as regards their preparedness to insure for theft certain types of vehicle due to their vulnerability to theft.           In addition, both stolen car radios and phones were regarded as commodities that could be readily traded.

Such concerns attracted central government attention who encouraged key stakeholders such as vehicle manufacturers, insurers and police to work more effectively together and a key outcome was European-wide legislation in the mid-90’s which specified the fitment of  immobilisers at the point of manufacture for cars.

The Crime and Disorder Act (1998) encouraged greater involvement of local police and government and the collapse of the scrap metal market in the early years of this century resulted in concerns regarding abandoned vehicles and vehicle arson.

Since the mid-1990’s there has been a steady and sustained reduction in vehicle crime – expressed in terms of theft of and theft from vehicles – which uncannily is identical to a similar trend in terms of household burglary.       Furthermore, it is remarkable to note that the current police strategic agenda appears to be well attuned to addressing all aspects of vehicle related crime and disorder.

Neighbourhood Policing      Focused on local community issues where vehicles can represent signals of social disorder and concern:-

Speeding, poor parking, congestion, abandoned vehicles, illicit vehicles (no tax, insurance, MOT), impulsive theft of and theft from vehicles, vehicle interference and criminal damage.

Level 2 Policing       Cross Border reduction of organised crime – theft of and theft from vehicles.

Police Protective Services      

• Anti-terrorism – associated with a significant expansion of ANPR (Automatic Number Plate Registration) to deliver a national system for recording the movement of suspect vehicles
• Roads Policing – which includes safety camera enforcement, reducing road casualties and anti-social use of the road, and denying criminals the use of the road?

Road User Charging      The London Congestion Charge was introduced in 2003 and represents a catalyst to the wider adoption of roads charging which may well utilise ANPR or EVI (Electronic Vehicle Identification) methodology.         Traditionally road charges have been enforced by a toll booth but the capacity to expand income generation will increase if effective enforcement can be achieved using less interruptive techniques such as ANPR or EVI.

National Vehicle Database Development      Effective enforcement relies on accurate and readily accessible data and the DVLA continue to steadily enhance the accuracy and timeliness of their data.        DVLA claim vehicle traceability to be 97.4% and recently have started to provide weekly as opposed to monthly updates to the Police’s ANPR database.       The Police also have access to vehicle insurance and MOT databases.

Vehicle Charge Compliance        ESVA intends to build up a database which examines compliance by ‘control regime’ and seeks to determine what should be realistic improvement targets over the next five to ten years.

Transport for London are developing a strong capacity to monitor compliance across a number of ‘control regimes’ – e.g. – congestion charging, bus lanes, boxed junctions

I plan to collate as much data as possible and will report in the Autumn on my findings and am developing an approach whereby ‘compliance one’ refers to the level of acceptance of a ‘control regime’ and ‘compliance two’ refers to the level of success in collecting a penalty from a ‘compliance one’ offender.

Vehicle Number Plate Compliance      ESVA’s chairman, Lord Brougham and Vaux, highlighted concerns, in a debate on the Road Safety Bill in October 2005,

regarding the ease with which illicit number plates can be fitted to vehicles.

There are over 30,000 registered plate suppliers and a growing incidence of reported thefts of number plates from parked vehicles.        It is encouraging to note the imminent testing of a tamper-proof plate which will self-destruct if attempts are made to remove from its legitimate vehicle.

‘BIG BROTHER’ or ‘BIG FRIENDLY GIANT’ – A CHALLENGE IN SHAPING PUBLIC PERCEPTION

In general terms, CCTV coverage of public spaces such as town centres has been broadly accepted whilst the presence of safety (or speed) cameras has been less well accepted.      At present there has been little public debate as to the merits of a national ANPR system whilst recognising that its development has been associated with a growing awareness, within government and the police, of the risk of a terrorist attack involving a vehicle.

In addition, is there an opportunity from a ‘compliance enhancing’ perspective – to win public acceptance for a system capable of identifying vehicles that are non-compliant?     The most general approximation indicates that 5% of motorists are non-compliant and enforcement could perhaps reduce this non-compliance to 1% or possibly 0.1%.       Progress of this magnitude would significantly reduce the negative impact of vehicles in their contribution to lack of order and community cohesion.

I am keen to check on whether there is a growing issue around non-compliance of vehicles being driven on foreign number plates.

Tracking Technology    Vehicle tracking technology has now been available to the general public since the early 1990’s and ‘black box’ technology is also available to provide data in the event of an accident and is also being used to determine appropriate insurance premiums.      Interest has also been expressed in delivering an enhancement to tracking technology which can immobilise a vehicle if appropriate – for example if it has been stolen – but the development of this approach appears to be problematic at present.

FURTHER CHALLENGES TO:-

Vehicle Manufacturers  

• The fitment of enhanced glazing will reduce the incidence of both theft of and theft from vehicles whilst also delivering safety and driver comfort benefits.
• The fitment of security boxes would reduce the incidence of theft from vehicles.
• Development of new ‘key’ technology so that keys can only be used by their legitimate owner to drive their vehicle.
• Implement marking (and possibly database management) systems capable of deterring organised vehicle thieves who seek to legitimise the identity of a stolen vehicle or its components.

Aftermarket Equipment Suppliers

 When supplying their products to motorists – design in appropriate features that will ensure that the purchaser does not increase their risk of becoming a victim of crime.

For example – during the past year, motorists who have purchased navigation systems have been victimised by thieves stealing them from their car.      Some kind of deactivating capability would have significantly reduced the theft risk.

Car Park Operators

• Continue to adopt the Safer Parking Award Scheme for off-street locations
• Work to ensure greater compliance for on-street parking schemes

E-Traders and Salvage Dealers

Develop strategies to reduce the risk of dealing in stolen vehicles and components

Home Office

• Ensure that their intelligence is such that it can aggregate local intelligence to comment authoritatively on national trends such as stolen vehicle recovery rates.       I would welcome any data from all sources within the ESVA network and will again report back in the Autumn,
• To be able to offer guidance to all stakeholders especially when the steadily declining reduction in vehicle crime ceases to occur.
• Anticipate changes in criminal attack methods and encourage the development of appropriate counter-measures

To All Stakeholders

To seek out and support all preventative attempts which aim to reduce vehicle related crime and disorder.       In particular ESVA sees the value of engaging effectively with young people via community education involving vehicles which aims to capture their interest in vehicles and harness it to help them become responsible citizens.

VN July 2006

A more detailed annual summary is available.

Annual subscriptions are: £1,200 + VAT - commercial members, £200 + VAT - non-commercial members and ESVA is supported by the following 32 organisations:

Annual subscriptions are :- £1,200 + VAT - commercial members, £200 + VAT - non-commercial members and ESVA is supported by the following 31 organisations:

Alpha-Scientific Ltd.,
Association of British Insurers,
British Motorcyclists Federation,
British School of Motoring,
British Telecom,
BUMPY Ltd. (Birstall Urban Motorcycle Project for Youth),
Consumers¹ Association,
Crime Concern Trust,
Devon County Council,
Driving Standards Agency,
Equifax PLC,
Ford Motor Company,
CGU Insurance,
Halfords Ltd.,
Hampshire County Council,
Mobile Electronics and Security Federation,
Motorcycle Industry Association,
Motor Industry Research Association,
Motor Schools Association,
National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders (NACRO),
Navtrak,
Northumbria Probation Service,
PACTS (Parliamentary Advisory Council on Transport Safety),
Pilkington Automotive,
The Leasing Group (British Gas),
The Wheels Project Ltd. (based in Bristol),
TRACKER Network (UK) Ltd.,
Vauxhall Motors,
Volvo Car UK Ltd.,
Yamaha Motors (UK) Ltd.,
Young Lewisham Workshop.

Meetings

Viv Nicholas (Executive Director)

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