Letter to the Editor: Cargo Theft

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May 17 letter offered the opinion that I mischaracterized a piece of California legislation in my April 19 opinion column.

I was simply pointing out that states are finding their own solutions to truck and homeland security issues — which, in an age of terrorism, is to be expected — and that trucking needs to be aware and ready to respond when thosesolutions are unreasonable and impractical.

Many of the writer’s remarks, in fact, support much of what I said.

For example, for many fleets the technological investment will be more than a million dollars, and the research on such technologies and their effectiveness in loss prevention has not been completed.

True, many carriers have made and will make the decision to invest in such technologies because they make good business sense for their particular operations, but I would like to leave the decision on whether a system is appropriate and effective to the carrier whose very success may or may not depend on it.

I appreciate and respect the writer’s position, as I think he is defending his industry’s interests. His organization is a consortium of suppliers of vehicle tracking and monitoring, emergency response, mobile asset management, equipment finance and insurance companies — many, if not all of which, have served trucking well.

However, they will stand to gain substantially if the government mandates the purchase and installation of their products and services.

Susan Chandler

I>Executive Director

TA Safety & Loss Prevention Management Council

lexandria, Va.

This letter appeared in the May 31 print edition of Transport Topics. Subscribe today.

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