valhalla360 wrote:
Solution:
Unless you stay in really sketchy campgrounds, no one is going to drive away with your trailer. The vast majority of stolen trailers are in backyards or storage yards where they have plenty of time to case the situation and it will be a long time before anyone notices it's gone.
The California State park rangers are trained Highway patrol officers that request assignment as park rangers (or something like that) and are duly sworn officers and have the same responsibilities, priivelages and connections to law enforcement in the state as do any Highway patrol division.
Keeping that in mind, several years ago when we were camp hosting in Morro Bay we received an alert through the Ranger staff, through the state Highway Patrol. Apparently California Law enforcement agencies were being alerted to a string of camper trailer thefts that had been occurring across the state. At least a dozen units had been stolen. ALL of them from camp grounds while the owner was out sight-seeing. Private camp grounds as well as state had been hit. Some of the camp grounds were relatively upscale and all of them had staff of some sort on property at all times.
A couple of the reports even mentioned the thieves had made contact with staff members and gave a story about the owner either becoming ill or having a family emergency and they were either family or friends of the owner and had been sent to retrieve the unit.
Some of the units were later recovered but were totaled as the thieves had used the unit as a mobile lab. At least one of the units was recovered in Nevada.
We were instructed to be alert to this type of activity and if someone appeared to be moving a unit without proper authority we were to get the ranger staff involved.
The transient nature of camping and the relative anonymity of that transient nature lends well to this type of theft. Most often when someone rolls in to a camp ground, backs up to a unit and hooks it up to their vehicle will draw very little attention as that happens every day and unless the staff know the owner or their vehicle it is quite easy to hook up and drive off with a unit right under the nose of the camp ground staff.
It does not matter how plush or ratty a campground may be, they are ALL potential targets for thieves.
Maybe the thief will walk or drive through and toss a few unsecured incidentals in their trunk or under their arm and slip away or maybe they will be bold enough to hook up to a rig and drive off with it but the location and type of camp ground does not matter. Even secured camp grounds can fall victim to theft under the correct circumstances.
Of course, a persistent thief will not be stopped by basic security measures such as a tongue lock or wheel lock but at least it might slow them down or make them look suspicious. A staff member might not think twice about someone backing up and hooking up to a rig and driving off but if they back up to one rig, then drive a few sites over to another then that is likely to get some attention.
Also, a guy futzing with a wheel lock for a while would likely get some attention. If you want to help protect your rig from a would-be thief in a camp ground a tongue lock or wheel lock would be a good choice. at least it will slow the thief down and maybe alert the attention of the staff or fellow campers and prevent the rig from being driven away.
:E
[purple]I ride it like I stole it![/purple] :B
.......and I just may have.......
I'm on "CB-13", are you?
2004 Fun Mover with a 1998 Road King and a 2002 Sportster tucked in the garage, Dragging a 2002 "RAM Tough" Dodge Dakota Crew Cab. Ohhh what a haul!
TSgt(Ret.) USAF
