Several months ago while visiting a buddy’s garage, talk quickly turned to the price of fuel. That was before the latest round of price hikes.
The concept of siphoning also came up as a pending eventuality. Decades ago when the fuel crisis was taking hold in North America, people were urged to get locking gas caps and to keep an eye on their fuel storage tanks. We are at that precipice again today.
Never shying away from sharing some personal anecdotes that might help others, we learned firsthand recently about gas siphoning. Our fleet was hit a week ago, and upon reporting it to police, we were informed the siphoning was a first for this area. Most disappointing with the incident was that we had talked about installing keyed gas cap locks just the week before. Since last Friday, Newspapers in surrounding counties have pointed to fuel siphoning reaching serious proportions. For us, the loss was restricted to four vehicles, prompting some defensive actions, including updating our security cameras.
Another more common occurrence reported on the front page this week is drive-aways at gas stations. Self-serve operations seem to be hit more often, where people fill up and dash off without paying. Those businesses too, will need to up the ante on security or suffer the fate of lost revenue. The problem, identified state-side long ago, results in pre-paid fill-ups or the use of debit and credit cards on site. That is yet another example of how the crooked operators affect generally law abiding citizens.
Business owners, farmers, and homeowners with fuel storage tanks should take note of this problem. With the price of fuel, the issue is bound to crop up and cost unsuspecting people cash out of pocket, not to mention the annoyance of being unable to get to work the next day.
Thefts never feel good – particularly when it costs so much to fill up these days.
