North Carolina has the second most heavy equipment thefts in the country, according to a report published by the National Insurance Crime Bureau.
The report gathered its data from the National Crime Information Center, which receives theft reports from law enforcement. Forty-nine percent of all heavy equipment stolen was in the category of mowers, riding or garden tractors. The months with the highest levels of theft were July and August. The report revealed theft levels directly correspond with the amount of equipment in an area.
“Where you see a lot of construction activity, you tend to find pockets of thefts that go along with that activity,” said Frank Scafidi, director of public affairs at NICB. “Why there are some states where there is more [theft] than others—it could be something as simple as there are more targets available for some reason and there are more people willing to steal those things.”
This might be one of the reasons for North Carolina's high ranking, Scafidi noted.
To reduce the possibility of theft, the NICB encourages equipment owners to install hidden fuel shut-off systems, to remove fuses and circuit breakers when engines are off and to maintain a photo archive of equipment.
“If you’re out on a job site, a lot of groups don’t have the time to sit and move their equipment back and forth all night, so you leave it at the site and hope it’s there in the morning,” Scafidi said.
In addition, Scafidi recommended arranging equipment in a "wagon train," or a spiral with large equipment creating an outer ring that protects smaller items inside.
The University has not had any problems with heavy equipment theft recently, said Chief of Police John Dailey and Albert Scott, director of housekeeping, grounds and sanitation and recycling.
Even so, with all of the construction on campus, Scott said heavy equipment theft could be a concern. Scott’s department locks a front-loader, which loads dump trucks with materials such as dirt of asphalt, in a compound and stores the key in the office for safety.
“Many of the sites with heavy equipment are locked,” Dailey wrote in an email Monday. “We patrol and watch the sites after hours. I do not recall the theft of a piece of heavy equipment from Duke in some time.”
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