We have all driven past a construction site at some point or another in or lifetime. There are men and women in hard hats operating heavy machinery or carrying tools. Few people stop to think that the types of machines being used such as cranes and bulldozers are very expensive and in most cases are left on the job site overnight. This has given rise to construction site equipment theft as well as vandalism. For the worker it can be disheartening to come to work to find your lively hood has been stolen. For the company owner it can mean financial ruin, loss of revenue and loss of contracts. For the criminal who steals construction equipment, it can mean a hefty fine and a long jail sentence.
Considering the average cost for a bulldozer can cost anywhere from $10,000 all the way up to over $100,000, it is wise to take any and all steps necessary to secure construction site property. This in itself may be difficult for several reasons. For one, construction equipment is normally brought to a location via a large truck and is stored on the jobsite. It’s not like an operator can just drive the machine home and park it in their driveway. Another reason is that the way the machines are designed provides very little security. More often that not they are made with safety and connivance as the top priorities, while security takes a back seat. Just as a criminal can hot wire a car or motorcycle, the same can be done with construction equipment. Savvy thieves know that the payoff for construction equipment is far greater than the cost of a normal car. What makes it worse is job sites are often in secluded areas where the average person wouldn’t dare go to. This provides the perfect opportunity for a thief to load the stolen goods onto a truck without anyone seeing. Once you factor in the models that don’t have locks on them, or may not even have a door, you can see how easy it is to steal them.
Once equipment has been sold it’s very difficult to determine where the machine came from. In most states you aren’t required to register the machine as long as it’s for job site use and not driven on the public road. In the case of other types of automobiles, it would be easy to determine if a vehicle was stolen or not by the license plates or vin number.
So what are the options for securing property on construction sites? Unfortunately there isn’t much that can be done to prevent it. However, you can protect yourself by using surveillance to catch criminals who have stolen property. Regardless of the public privacy debates that normally take place when dealing with video surveillance, it still works. It works for a deterrent to thieves who don’t want to be filmed stealing and also in catching those who do steal. With technology rapidly bringing the cost of electronic security lower and lower, this is the best cost effective insurance you can have on a construction site.
