IRU’s General Assembly today unanimously adopted a Resolution to protect drivers, passengers, loads and vehicles from the dramatic increase in pirate and international organised crime attacks targeting parking areas.

Geneva – The IRU’s General Assembly today unanimously adopted a Resolution on Commercial vehicle parking areas targeted by pirates and international organised crime to remedy the dramatic situation highlighted by the field-study jointly conducted by the IRU and the International Transport Forum (ITF) on Attacks on Drivers of International Heavy Goods Vehicles.

Indeed, the survey of 2,500 drivers in 31 countries demonstrated that one in six drivers were the victims of attacks by pirates or international organised crime, more than 60% of which occurred in insecure parking and service areas, at night. While causing huge human suffering (21% of attacked drivers were physically assaulted), the direct costs of such attacks have been estimated at EUR 7 billion over a period of five years.

IRU President, Janusz Lacny, stressed, “The lack of adequately secure infrastructure, as well legislative rigidity makes it easier for pirates and international organised crime to attack drivers, their trucks and loads, and sometimes even bus and coach passengers. While the IRU, in cooperation with ITF, has collected and published information on truck parking areas in Europe for almost twenty years, it is high time that national authorities take all the necessary measures, including the regular communication of accurate information, to meet their constitutional obligation of ensuring the security of people and goods on their territory!”

The current significant lack of commercial vehicle parking areas in EU and non-EU countries alike, coupled with the lack of a sufficient number of secure parking areas or accurate information about their location dramatically increases the risk for drivers and facilitates the task of pirates and international organised crime. Moreover, the stringent social regulations, such as the introduction on EU territory of the digital tachograph, oblige drivers to stop in insecure areas to comply with the driving and rest times legislation.

The IRU Resolution therefore urgently calls upon competent authorities to put an end to the unacceptable human suffering and economic loss resulting from the lack of and/or insecurity of parking areas by:
- Bringing to justice pirates and international organised criminals who attack drivers;
- Systematically and imperatively providing data on the location and status of secure parking areas on their territory to the ITF or the IRU;
- Creating a network of secure parking including enhanced communication devices to report incidents or alarm the police; fences and physical entry barriers; registration of incoming and outgoing vehicles; driver identification and weighing of vehicles; parking and tanking exclusively for trucks / coaches / buses; 24-hour camera and regular police surveillance, optimal lighting of parking slots, security manager; centralised registration of security incidents; etc.

The IRU Resolution also recommends to transport operators to use the IRU-ITF parking databank available at www.internationaltransportforum.org and www.iru.org for daily route planning activities, and to implement security measures outlined in the IRU security guidelines for truck, bus, coach and taxi operators, drivers, partners and customers. Parking data will be accessible on the web with interactive search facilities in 2009.
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Press contact: Juliette Ebélé, +41 22 918 27 07, Press@iru.org