Equipment loss and theft can have a devastating impact on a company’s budget, especially for smaller builders and contractors. A GPS tracking system can be invaluable in these circumstances.
When Kristal Wagner of Interwest Construction Inc., received an email alert from her fleet GPS tracking system reporting that a vehicle was on the move in the middle of the night, she immediately realized one of her company’s trucks had been stolen.
Ms. Wagner called the police and activated the stolen vehicle’s fleet GPS system, installed inside the vehicle. Next thing you know, the chase was on.
According to Ms. Wagner, “We had a truck stolen on Monday during the night. I used the the real-time fleet GPS tracking system to pull up the vehicle’s exact location and gave the Sheriff the information. We recovered the truck within a couple of hours. Some small items that weren’t valuable were stolen from the truck, but the vehicle was not harmed at all!”
Ms. Wagner said, “We always have the security of our equipment in mind. Tools, materials and equipment are often left overnight on the job site due to their weight and considerable bulk. When these pieces are stolen, they are almost never recovered and productivity stops – unless they are equipped with a fleet GPS tracking system.”
FieldLogix, an industry-leading GPS fleet tracking system, was successfully utilized to recover the missing truck in just a few hours.
Over 1.2 million vehicles were stolen last year in the US with an estimated value of over 7.6 billion, according to the National Insurance Crime Bureau. Nearly half of these vehicles are never recovered, and are commonly scrapped for parts or smuggled to another country.
Without a GPS tracking system, police can take days, weeks, and even months to recover stolen assets – if they can recover anything at all. GPS tracking devices allow an owner to track the location of their assets in real-time, and can locate a stolen vehicle or piece of equipment within minutes. Police can often recover the stolen items in less than 24 hours.
There are dozens of other reasons to have a fleet tracking system such as FieldLogix installed. But suffice it to say that this reason is at the top of the list. Being proactive about vehicle theft prevention will help keep you from becoming a victim. And that is peace of mind we all can use.