How Secure Are Your Tonka Toys?
Big-boy toys that dig holes, tear down buildings or ship goods cross-country may not sound terribly high-tech.
But some of these valuable pieces of equipment are now guarded by global positioning systems and transmitters perhaps no bigger than a deck of cards.
It’s the construction and shipping industries’ way of striking back at thieves who persistently target their equipment. However, some experts say more companies should be embracing the technology.
Earlier this month, a 38-year-old Manteca man was arrested after allegedly stealing a generator that was equipped - little did he know - with a GPS unit. The unit alerted authorities that the man was driving on Highway 99. Dino Rovai of Manteca soon was stopped and taken into custody… Full Article Here:
Many people don’t think much about tracking construction equipment … after all it often stays in one place for days, weeks or months at a time. But the theft of this type of asset has been steadily growing and really threatens to continue to grow.
If a thief steals your Toyota or Chevrolet, he’s going to have to go through a lot of hoops to get it on the roads to use legally or find a phony title to sell it.
But if he steals a John Deere backhoe and trucks it to the next county, who’s going to take notice of it working on a construction site? Construction equipment often doesn’t even have a title or a license. If you’re in that line you better start thinking about ways to protect yourself.
An interesting sideline in the article is the reference to (in my opinion) the almost totally inane LoJack system. For $800 (and up) you might have something that could help the police locate your equipment (if you already know what place department’s jurisdiction it might be in)
For under $500 I’ll put a little completely self-contained box on your equipment (battery powered for 7 years) and it will tell you where it is, anywhere in North America. Why is it that the US seems to be obsessed with adopting second-rate technology … like LoJak, the VHS of theft recovery systems. (Yes I still do not only believe, but know that Betamax is better 