Hi all,
It’s been a while since I posted one of these, but here goes…I’m putting together a short piece for Commercial Motor listing 10 crime hotspots, so I figured I’d at least make the effort to ask where you guys are avoiding these days, rather than just looking randomly online. I have my own knowledge as well, of course, but I suspect it’s well out of date by now! 
So…Where have you been robbed? Or heard of people being robbed? 
Cheers! Lucy.
La Jonquera?
Everyone I know who has stopped there swears blind they were robbed of their running money.
Anywhere near a tipper-body Ford Transit towing a caravan.
A1 from Doncaster to Stamford, north or south, the biggest no no is the A421 between Black Cat and MK.
That hasn’t changed then Maoster! 
A14 corridor through Northamptonshire is another I’m fully expecting to pop up…
Lucy:
That hasn’t changed then Maoster!
Aye, you’re right Lucy. Been like that for years. The Fathers have all been jailed and now their kids are carrying on “.the family business” 
It’d be easier to do an article on places where you WON’T get your load nicked and tank emptied. That should take you all of 0.01 seconds to write. 
Franglais:
La Jonquera?
Everyone I know who has stopped there swears blind they were robbed of their running money.
DCPCFML:
It’d be easier to do an article on places where you WON’T get your load nicked and tank emptied. That should take you all of 0.01 seconds to write.
Aye, probably. But our rates are based on word count, so…
Lucy:
DCPCFML:
It’d be easier to do an article on places where you WON’T get your load nicked and tank emptied. That should take you all of 0.01 seconds to write.Aye, probably. But our rates are based on word count, so…
Well good luck I guess. No-one reads Comical Motor anymore and probably haven’t done for the past decade. You’ll be telling me that Truck & Driver magazine is still going next. It’s like being back in the 90s. Comical Motor isn’t even any good for truck ads anymore - it’s original raison d’être. It takes 10 minutes just to get the website to load and search results take about the same length of time to appear. Probably hosted on the same server as this site actually, which would explain a lot.
Lucy:
A14 corridor through Northamptonshire is another I’m fully expecting to pop up…
Always surprised not to see more suspicious vans down there but maybe there’s too much traffic even in the middle of the night. Always keep an eye out however just incase.
I do know a bad but us the laybys after the A11 joins the A14 from hearing the stories around there. Not scared to ■■■■■ curtains.
Anywhere within easy access of Newark area would be a key one. You would not believe the vast number of “friendly caravan sites” within a 10 mile radius of there (there are 10 sites within 5 miles of my house). Not that such people would be remotely responsible of course… 
Keeping it on topic…
Around Lutterworth at the moment seems to be a bit of a hotspot. Plenty reports of stuff going missing in the heat of the night. Or maybe as its local to me I hear about it more.
The Heads of the Valleys road, A465, between Abergavenny and Neath, plenty of diesel fairies about!
pete smith:
The Heads of the Valleys road, A465, between Abergavenny and Neath, plenty of diesel fairies about!
That one i think i know where they come from.One of the truck firms had diesel nicked from a truck in their yard.Skipped a fence and put a hose and emptied it.Over the weekend .
WheelsofCardiff:
pete smith:
The Heads of the Valleys road, A465, between Abergavenny and Neath, plenty of diesel fairies about!That one i think i know where they come from.One of the truck firms had diesel nicked from a truck in their yard.Skipped a fence and put a hose and emptied it.Over the weekend .
Yes quite a lot of that happening with firms that have their own fuel on site. I had one milked at Mountain Ash even though I had told the driver not to park around there and also when trucks parked on the Asda at Dowlais top it was a regular occurrence.
We’ve had diesel gone on the A1 around Newark so now have a company policy of no layby parking on A1 at all (they do pay parking just driver preference and out of time)
Doncaster seems to be always bad regardless where you park, and hear regular reports of the A426 between Rugby and Lutterworth (although we regularly park on there with no problems)
Fuel is our only issue, no one seems to want to steal the rubbish (literally ) we carry.
The layby halfway up to the hill from Scunny steelworks back towards the bridge is not somewhere you park overnight if you still want some diesel in your tank in the morning,
Thanks guys, keep 'em coming!
La Jonqueria Spanish border town was notorious for cab break ins as spotters saw drivers walking to the shower with a towel so there’s the time window to get in but mostly Eastern European gangs operating there from Albanian , Romania and Bulgaria according to the police crime reports.
Any lay by on the free or toll motorway and dual carriageway road network from Jonqueria to Barcelona to Alicante to Murcia with numerous reports of North African illegal immigrants living rough in the orange groves to carry out random cab break ins , the Valencia area being the worst.
Marseille is a no go area and never park within a 50 mile radius from it.
Anywhere along the A50 between the M1 and M6. Fuel and Goods taken on a regular basis.