LoJack, a wholly owned subsidiary of CalAmp and a leader in vehicle and construction equipment theft recovery, announced that law enforcement officials throughout the United States recovered construction equipment with replacement value of more than $10 million* using the LoJack System for Construction & Commercial Vehicles and Equipment in 2016.
LoJack's "2016 Construction Equipment Theft Recovery Report" highlights the persistent and expensive problem of professional thieves targeting construction businesses for high-value equipment. The report identifies equipment categories and classes, manufacturers and geographies where theft is most prevalent. Construction equipment theft not only results in the hard costs associated with stolen key assets, but those incurred due to lost efficiency, missed deadlines and under-utilized workers. These costs impact the finances of both small and large businesses.
The 2016 LoJack Construction Equipment Theft Recovery Report revealed the following:
- 69% of the recovered construction equipment installed with the LoJack Commercial system were recovered within 24 hours after being reported as stolen to law enforcement
- Since the study began in 2000, more than $186 million** worth of stolen heavy equipment has been recovered using the LoJack System
- The top equipment types recovered were in proportion to those used on jobsites:
1. Wheeled and Tracked Loaders (36%) – used to shovel or move material around
2. Towables (35%) - generators, air compressors, cement mixers, and welders
3. Skid Loaders (15%) - specialty vehicles with a range of powered attachments - The following were the top three most stolen and recovered construction equipment brands:
1. Doosan Bobcat (26%)
2. John Deere (17%)
3. Caterpillar (8%) - 50% of the commercial equipment stolen was no more than five years old
- Equipment was recovered 97% of the time in the same state where it was stolen
A 2014 National Insurance Crime Bureau (NICB) report indicated that up to $1 billion is lost annually due to construction equipment theft and only 23% of it is ever recovered. Opportunistic equipment thieves are targeting assets which are difficult for law enforcement to track and recover due to lack of standardization in production identification numbers.
“Thieves targeting the construction industry are becoming increasingly sophisticated and organized," said Courtney DeMilio, National Vice President of Commercial and Fleet for LoJack. “Ultimately, we all shoulder the resulting cost in terms of loss of efficiency. At LoJack, we’re proud to work with law enforcement and the construction industry to recover stolen equipment and mitigate the dramatic impact on capital expense and operational downtime to construction businesses across the US."
The 2016 LoJack Construction Equipment Theft Recovery Report is gathered from LoJack's proprietary theft and recovery data and EDA, a division of Randall-Reilly. The report data is specific to stolen construction equipment and machinery outfitted with the LoJack System for Construction & Commercial Vehicles and Equipment that were recovered from January to December 2016.
(See the 2015 Lojack report...)
*2016 LoJack proprietary theft and recovery data with value of assets determined from information obtained from EquipmentTracker.com, MachineryTracker.com and National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA).
**LoJack proprietary theft and recovery data with value of total assets determined from information obtained from EquipmentTracker.com, MachineryTracker.com and National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA) from year to year since 2000.
