True to a point but any lay bye south of Donny is prime target and has been for years. Ok the scrots do the deed but only because its easy picking parked there.
Lucy:
Here’s what happened:A very good friend of mine parked up in the layby where the Cromwell Cafe is - Cromwell Halt, to those who still know it by that name - and put his lock on the back of his container as usual. He had a brief chat with the guy in the tautliner next door, and went to bed.
At around midnight, he was woken by the sound of a van screeching out of the layby at high speed. 5 minutes later, the guy in the next wagon brays on his door, and he sticks his head out to see flames coming from behind his motor. Further investigation revealed that whoever was in the van had tried to cut the lock off with oxy-acetylene, but something had gone wrong and the bottle itself had ignited, leaving an almighty flamethrower coming out of the valve on top.
Long story short, the Police and Fire Brigade were called, the layby was emptied, and my mate helped to safety. The flame was extingushed and several hours later, Mel (yes, that one Greek - had to be, really, didn’t it? LOL!) was allowed to leave. The exclusion zone was brought in for 24 hours for the reasons explained above.
The wagon was fine except for the lock having melted onto the doors, the load was delivered (after an angle grinder had been sourced!), and the box reloaded. Mel is only too aware that he had a lucky escape, however. If the guy next door hadn’t got up for a ■■■■, they wouldn’t have spotted the lit bottle, and it could have exploded taking them both with it. It was sheer luck that the flamethrower pointed away from the tautliner else, again, they would have been dead men.
Out of approximately 15 people in the layby, ours was the only sealed container and therefore the only one touched. The Police think the scrotes who caused all this saw the seal and lock and assumed it must be full of tellys or similar. In reality, the load would have had no resale value on the black market at all. Ironically, the tautliner next door, which was also untouched, was full of skis and ski equipment…
Be careful out there, folks. Next time it could be you.
same story i got from a Senoir driver
I know it’s accurate, Micky. It came from the horse’s mouth, and the guy’s one of my best mates. 
But why shut the A1 atleast three and a half hours after the fire, if it was that risky why not close it asap.
No idea.