Work Van and Work Truck Security Guide

Every trade comes with expensive specialty tools. While prices for everything come down eventually, there is always more to buy. So many tools make you faster and more efficient that you simply need them to be competitive.

In some trades, your employer provides some or most of your tools. But for many trades, you need to bring and take care of your own tools - this can easily be thousands of dollars worth of stuff.

Theft is expensive in terms of money, but it also costs you a significant amount of time.

First Things First

Determined thieves that know you have tools will be difficult to stop.

If someone really wants your tools or your work van, they will get them. That doesn't mean you should just throw in the towel. Actually, you just have to make sure that no one really wants your tools or van.

Do this by:

• Being invisible.
• Showing that you're watching your van.
• Showing that your van will be hard to break into.

Then make sure that you're prepared for theft.

Balance Effort and Money

It's well worth examining how costly some theft-avoidance techniques are.

However, some theft-avoidance techniques don't cost *only* money, they'll take your time and attention as well. You could hire a private security guard to watch your tools at night, but it's likely his wages would cost more than your tools after a year!

Keeping your windows rolled up and using the AC is a low effort activity. It's an easy habit to develop since you don't really need to do anything.

But removing tools from your van every night and putting them back in the morning is time and energy intensive if you supply a lot of your own gear. That's a high effort activity.

For some, like Mark of Power Sonic Ltd., this strategy is the one that works - in fact, he and his employees empty the vans on every job and every night.

The threat risk, downtime, and trouble are all just too much for his business, and that's okay.

Many of the techniques here won't be needed by everyone. You might park in a secure warehouse at night and work in crime-free neighborhoods. Going overkill on security and paranoia is terrible for your mental health, so get insurance, have a plan if your tools are stolen, and enjoy life.

Be Invisible

How do thieves know that you have tools to steal?

If it looks like you're a tradesperson, they'll know there are tools inside. The obvious tipoffs are ladders on a roof rack, signage on the van, and lots of stuff inside when comeone looks through the windows.

So become the gray man's van:

Put ladders inside.

Ladder theft isn't the only bad thing about having ladders on the outside of your truck. They're also a signal to thieves that you have tools in your work van.

Depending on what you do, you might be able to stash your ladders inside your van and eliminate the clues. Consider doing your ladders differently:

Practically speaking, for a lot of tradespeople, putting their ladders inside might just not work. If you always need four ladders on your van and you drive a Chevy Express, you'll just have to keep them on the roof and lock them up.

If you have the ability to be a little more creative with your ladders, you have some options:

Switch to a multipurpose ladder

Multipurpose ladders fold up small and stash easily inside most vans. They can replace extension and step ladders. Downsides? They're pretty heavy and get heavier as you need longer lengths.

You could get around the weight by carrying an extension ladder only when necessary, although that will normally be tough to know in advance! A pass-through bulkhead gets you a little extra length for fitting an extra-long ladder.

The weight of a multipurpose will slow you down, so you should consider pairing it with a thin, low, lightweight step ladder.

Store ladders under the floor or at the ceiling.

Some tradespeople build a false floor into their van for storage. This works best in high roof vans. It's possible to store pipe or ladders in these spaces.

There are also interior racks and mounts that can hold ladders or materials.

Use magnetic signs.

Maybe don't hold out hope for this one: It's really up to your boss!

Marketing is important to your company. If you've already got a lot of signage on your truck, it probably won't be changed. However, if you do more commercial and industrial-type work, it's more likely that it'll be okay to not have a lot of advertising.

If you need signage (and it complies with local laws), see about getting magnetic signs made that can go on and off your van.

Use Window Tinting.

Don't let anyone see inside your vehicle! If no one knows what's inside, it'll be a lot less enticing.

Cover Other Windows.

You might have some windows that are uncovered in the cargo area. Cover them up!

Newspaper is cheap and still lets the light in. It looks a little janky, but this might be a good thing depending on the place you're working.

You can also use plywood to cover windows, and this gives you the added benefit of being able to mount things to the plywood to store tools or supplies in the window recess.

Good Habits = Safe Tools

Frankly, there are many habits here that you can develop!

You're probably already doing most of them, but if you aren't figure out ways to trick your brain into complying! Being careless with security or situational awareness will put your tools at risk.

Remove the temptation to "cheat" on your habits. Do the same thing all the time, every time. If that means locking the doors every time you get out of the truck, then do that.

Take Your Keys

Some people actually leave their keys in the ignition or the center console of their truck! Don't do that. Take them with you every time. By making this a habit, you'll never worry that you left your truck alone too long, and you'll ingrain the habit so that you won't forget your keys in your truck.

If you have trouble with this, try:

• Keeping the ignition key individually on a keyring (if the bulk of your keyring annoys you).
• Clipping the keyring to your belt with a carabiner.
• Using a retractable cord clipped to your belt and attached to the key.

Don't Break Down.

A great reason to stay up on maintenance and repairs is that it will greatly reduce the chance that you break down somewhere you don't want to. There are some job sites that you just don't want to be stranded on the side of the road. Besides keeping up on repairs and maintenance, you can also:

• Always refill your fuel tank at 1/8-1/4 full to reduce the chance you run out.
• Join a roadside assistance program with fast service.
• Make sure you have a spare tire, working jack, and lug wrench. Check the tire to make sure it's holding air.

PS: Some mechanics are dummies and will use an impact set at a high torque to put your wheels on. Make sure you can break the lugs because this can really slow you down.

Be Aware of Key Cloning.

Lots of newer vehicles have electronic fobs instead of just mechanical keys. You might start your truck with a button push instead of turning an actual key - you only need the fob to be nearby.

Thieves can use two methods to unlock your vehicles remotely:

Relay attacks: These will work over short distances and through walls. The thieves will clone the signal from your fob in realtime to unlock your rig.

Immobilizer attacks: This targets the immobilizer in fob-equipped vehicles. It requires thieves to scan your fob from within a couple of inches, and they still need to mechanically turn the lock barrel on the steering column with a screwdriver.

Immobilizer attacks so far only appear to work on specific models of Toyota, Kia, Hyundai, and Tesla, so most work vans and trucks should be fine. But manufacturers are notorious for doing a terrible job at securing vehicles, so be aware that common factory electronics can be easily compromised by dedicated thieves.

Park in Good Spots.

Simple to say, not so easy to do, right?

Where and how you park can make your work van significantly more secure. You can:

• Make your van invisible by parking off street or in a garage.
• Make your van a bad target by parking under a camera or a light.
• Make it hard to get in your work van by parking against a wall, fence, or pole.

Keep the Cab Clear and Clutter-Free. (high Risk Areas)

If you have a bunch of junk on your dash, seats, and center console, your van will be "interesting" to people. There are two things going on here:

1. Putting things away means that there is no obvious payoff for a thief. If a thief sees a DeWalt drill on the seat, he'll at least know he can get a drill.
2. Garage sales and flea markets tables are most interesting when it's a little messy, but not a total disaster. Sellers that have almost nothing to sell never have anyone at their table. This is probably true for most people - be the almost-nothing table at the flea market.

Avoid Patterns. (high Risk Areas)

If you repeatedly go to a job site, park in a particular location, or drive the same streets, you're making a pattern that thieves can exploit. They just need to wait for you to do that same thing again. Be unpredictable.

Keep Windows Closed. (high Risk Areas)

If you like driving with the windows down, remember that you have a few grand in tools in the back and that it's easy to hijack you at a traffic light when you're window is down.

• Keeping windows closed is good because:
• People can't enter your inner domain from the outside.
• It's a lot harder for someone to get your attention from outside the van.
• You won't feel like you need to engage with someone yelling at you outside.
• Auto glass is pretty tough stuff.

This is also a great reason to get your boss to go for air conditioning in your van!

Don't talk about your van in public. (High risk areas)

Are you a blabber mouth? Is your wife/husband a blabber mouth? Your kid?

There are certain situations in life where you'll just not want to talk about how your work van is secured, what's in it, how you have a GPS tracker, or how many security camera are pointed at it. No one really needs to know that you have every Milwaukee tool in 48 Milwaukee Packouts.

If no one knows about your van (because you never told them), it may as well not exist to them.

Make It Secure

Once a thief has discovered your van and is deciding on whether it's a good target, you still can deter him by making it clear that it will be hard to break in to your van.

If a thief knows he'll need to spend 5 minutes going through your locks and security under a street light, he might pass it up for a van that will take 45 seconds.

Use Good Locks.

Factory door locks are generally weak and easy to drill or otherwise open. It's easy to replace these locks with beefier locks that won't slow you down during the workday.

More secure locks are available for both swing and sliding doors. Take a look at:

• Swing locks
• Dead locks
• Slam plates

It's a bonus if these locks are highly visible to thieves! They'll know that it'll be a little harder to break in to your van and might just pass it up.

Put Steel Grills Over the Windows.

This is a no-brainer. Steel grills are cheap and will at least slow down a thief trying to get in to your work van. It would be better to have no windows at all, but a grill works too.

Put up motion-detecting lights.

Thieves don't want to work in an area that suddenly lights up! A well-lit area or one that surprises them as they approach your van might deter them if it makes a theft attempt too risky.

Use Locking Storage Inside.

For your most expensive tools, consider putting them in a locking tool box.

Watch out! This one can be a bit of a double-edged sword. If the tool box is easy to remove from your work van, it will be easy for thieves to take all your tools in one shot! If your tools go in a secure box, make sure it's hard to get out.

One way to do this:

Try bolting a tool box in place, then tack-welding one or two bolt heads or nuts so that it can only be removed with a grinder. If you need to move the tool box, a tack weld is easy to remove.

Put up cameras.

You can set up security cameras both inside and outside your van. Cameras that are wifi enabled and can connect to home or shop wifi will let you keep tabs on your work van in real time.

Use padlocks inside your van.

Chain and lock large, expensive pieces of equipment that are inside your work van. Some of the larger tools you have may cost hundreds to thousands of dollars.

With thick chain and a good lock, you can slow down a thief that wants to steal your large tools.

Make sure that what you lock it to can't be easily disassembled!

If a thief can use your hacksaw or Sawzall to cut off the shelf leg that a drain machine is chained to, you will lose that drain machine!

Use brake and steering locks.

Some locks will lock your brake pedal in the down position or keep your steering wheel locked to a specific angle.

These are both things that you'd want to use in combination with other methods that will slow a thief down.

Prep for the Steal

Sometimes, your work van is just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Then, someone breaks in. So, you're going to give yourself 10 seconds to be ticked off, then you'll remember that you've done a couple things to prepare for this moment.

Take inventory.

Do you know what tools you have in your work van?

You should!

If you know what tools you have, they'll be easier for police to link to you, you can look for them to pop up on Craigslist, and you can use a tool inventory record for insurance claims.

Record the tool types, manufacturers, model numbers, and serial numbers.

There are apps that will let you enter record the tools you own on your phone. It can also be helpful to record a video of your tools, also taking note of model numbers and serial numbers.

If you go the video route, make sure you have a copy of it somewhere besides your phone! That video could be worth $15,000.

Get insurance.

If you have insurance, you can be reimbursed for the cost of the tools you have. Taking inventory of your tools and their values (the step above) is a very important step in the process. You need to be able to list and prove what tools you owned and how valuable they are to be fully compensated.

If you're an employee, instead of looking for tool insurance policies, the first step you should be taking is asking your boss whether your company has tool insurance for employee-owned tools.

Some homeowner's insurance policies will cover your work tools, but don't expect it. It's more of an exception than a rule.

Whether you buy, rent, lease, or borrow tools you can get tool insurance, but always check your policy to make sure you're covered.

NOTE!

You absolutely, absolutely need to read the fine print on your policy.

Insurance companies have requirements on policies that affect both your premiums and whether you're actually reimbursed.

These are things like:

• Whether you park in a garage at night.
• Whether you remove your tools from your van at night. (In other words, they only cover daytime theft.)
• Whether you have cameras on your van.

Always read the fine print! If you don't remove your tools from your van one night and your tools are stolen, they may not be covered! This kind of thing will be under a category called "Exclusions".

Remove expensive equipment.

Sometimes, the best way to not have your tools stolen is just to simply remove them from your work van. This is a nuclear option. Although it's very effective, it can add a significant amount of time and work to repeatedly outfit and de-outfit your work truck.

This works best when you use job kits or a Grab 'n Go type setup where it's easy to pull out your tools. This also works well on smaller vehicles where you can't fit a lot anyway.

After It's Stolen

As an employee, once your work van is stolen, it might be out of your hands. But there are still ways to find your work vehicle and tools once a thief has it.

Use GPS trackers.

GPS trackers are a passive method to keep up to date on the location of a vehicle.

If you're part of a larger company, it's likely that the fleet will have GPS tracking and locating capabilities. These systems can be used to let customers know you're own the way, but they can also be used to track a stolen work van.

GPS tracking systems are available as standalone units. Normally, you also need to pay for a data plan that will transmit location the van's location data to a centralized system.

Geofencing

A step above GPS trackers is using a GPS tracker to set up a geofencing system. This is more useful for employers than it is for employees.

With geofencing, you set up an geographic area and can be alerted when one of your fleet enters or exits that area. You can use these alerts for different things:

• Make sure vehicles don't leave your warehouse at night.
• Ensure employees don't drive through certain neighborhoods.
• Make sure employees aren't driving to the other side of the country.
• And lots more.