Government orders crackdown on car and van hire rentals.

[200bhp]

rscott said:

And once the terrorists realise that people are suspicious of vans, they'll just start buying cheap people carriers or SUVs from backstreet car dealers.
Stick on tints on the rear/side windows and no-one can see what's in the back. Then you've got big load space and pretty decent performance as well.

Use a Land Cruiser and it'll make them feel at home http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/isis-build...

[loafer123]

There is a good suggestion in a letter in the Telegraph this morning;

Only allow vehicles with automatic braking to be hired.

If they did this and made it so it cannot be disabled, that would be an easy way to mitigate the risk.

[STe_rsv4]

loafer123 said:

There is a good suggestion in a letter in the Telegraph this morning;

Only allow vehicles with automatic braking to be hired.

If they did this and made it so it cannot be disabled, that would be an easy way to mitigate the risk.

Automatic braking?
What is this wizadry you speak of?

[768]

I doubt they'd block the van hire, that'd be a bit of an unsubtle signal and a security risk if hire company access could determine if someone was on a list.

It's probably just more data to decide when to close in.

[GroundEffect]

loafer123 said:

There is a good suggestion in a letter in the Telegraph this morning;

Only allow vehicles with automatic braking to be hired.

If they did this and made it so it cannot be disabled, that would be an easy way to mitigate the risk.

Above a certain speed they don't work...and that speed is normally 30-40mph. It isn't hard to get above that...

[RedTrident]

I woke up to a Radio 5 story about sending in video footage of bad driving to the police'

I was on the books of a Housing Association post 2001. They'd had something through that requested their handymen report stuff as they had access to Muslim households. It was ridiculous. What exactly did they want us to report? The response would have had my elderly mother investigated.

The problem with checking against a list is who is on the list and why. The majority of people referred inappropriately to Channel, the government's anti radicalisation programme, are deemed not to be at risk and the referral was inappropriate. This programme is also allegedly voluntary, no crime has been committed.

Surely if we deem someone to be on a list because they pose a threat, we simply take their driving license off them?

[andy_s]

768 said:

I doubt they'd block the van hire, that'd be a bit of an unsubtle signal and a security risk if hire company access could determine if someone was on a list.

It's probably just more data to decide when to close in.

But they know they'll be flagged, so either they won't be there in the first place or the person is a 'clean skin' which means it won't be flagged anyway.

As for the Telegraph suggestion re brakes; again, if there was a mechanical change to hire vehicles that prevents them from being used effectively they'd just go to an easy alternative. It's just displacement to a harder to track alternative that may be better for their purpose as well (see above).

This is 'political security'; i.e. it benefits the politicians who can say 'we tried all we could' post-incident, it reassures a small percentage that can't see past it, it looks good from a 'let's get tough' point of view, but if I was in the SS I'd be fuming as it takes away an important potential indicator that could have been approached more subtly, will drain resources and provide yet another data stream to manage.

[768]

You could say the same for any digital signature.

[Glasgowrob]

Could have done it in reverse on the sly if they had half a brain


Stick someone in the DVLA and flag known dodgy folks and their relatives

When a hire place runs a check as they always do on the licence it flags up at the DVLA no you know a known dodgy person is hiring easily able to go find out what they've hired. And if the government had an ounce of sense they would have discretely insisted that hire vehicles have frackers fitted off the books give it 6 months then get the hire industry to push it thrhpigh due to high levels of theft

[catso]

Megaflow said:

Before the Barcelona thread was closed people were asking what could be done to prevent these attacks. The government have a suggestion.

I assume as you have criticised so much you have a better solution, if so I suggest putting in writing to your MP...

After almost every attack we hear that the bomber/terrorist was 'known' to the authorities, maybe there's something that could be done there...

[S11Steve]

Some rental companies have been doing background checks on hirers for nearly 20 years - depending on the rental IT platform used, the data can be checked as soon as the customer details are entered.

I've refused many a rental customer over the years for reasons that are never revealed to rental staff, but it could be from a history of fraud from previous rentals (from integration with the BVRLA RISC system) being on known security services watchlists using Bridger Insight, and also people with CCJs or driving licence address doesn't match electoral roll data.

Back in 2001 my office had to refuse a customer who wanted to hire a vehicle to drive to France for Christmas - scruffy looking guy who didn't kick up a fuss when we said "computer says no" . He shrugged his shoulders and left. a week or so later this happened - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Reid

The technology is out there and well proven, it's just the logistics of how to integrate it into every rental desk across the country.

[HTP99]

GroundEffect said:

loafer123 said:

There is a good suggestion in a letter in the Telegraph this morning;

Only allow vehicles with automatic braking to be hired.

If they did this and made it so it cannot be disabled, that would be an easy way to mitigate the risk.

Above a certain speed they don't work...and that speed is normally 30-40mph. It isn't hard to get above that...

And auto braking only detects metallic objects.

[robinessex]

Meanwhile, the second most powerful explosive available can be purchased at any petrol station !! It takes about 30 seconds on the net to find the plans for a home made machine gun !!

[S11Steve]

Glasgowrob said:

And if the government had an ounce of sense they would have discretely insisted that hire vehicles have frackers fitted off the books give it 6 months then get the hire industry to push it thrhpigh due to high levels of theft

Virtually every hire company offering self-drive hire insurance needs trackers to obtain cover, even then it's still third party only, and usually carries a hefty excess.

As someone mentioned above, it's already nearly impossible to hire a van with insurance in certain postcode areas.

[andy_s]

S11Steve said:

Some rental companies have been doing background checks on hirers for nearly 20 years - depending on the rental IT platform used, the data can be checked as soon as the customer details are entered.

I've refused many a rental customer over the years for reasons that are never revealed to rental staff, but it could be from a history of fraud from previous rentals (from integration with the BVRLA RISC system) being on known security services watchlists using Bridger Insight, and also people with CCJs or driving licence address doesn't match electoral roll data.

Back in 2001 my office had to refuse a customer who wanted to hire a vehicle to drive to France for Christmas - scruffy looking guy who didn't kick up a fuss when we said "computer says no" . He shrugged his shoulders and left. a week or so later this happened - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Reid

The technology is out there and well proven, it's just the logistics of how to integrate it into every rental desk across the country.

Thanks - I don't know enough about the process details to make a stab at offering a better alternative except for the notion that there must be a more subtle way of doing it i.e. along those lines - which already seem to exist and as you say, just needs the logistics, which I presume could be done without tipping off the guy who wants to hire the van in the first place.

[loafer123]

HTP99 said:

GroundEffect said:

loafer123 said:

There is a good suggestion in a letter in the Telegraph this morning;

Only allow vehicles with automatic braking to be hired.

If they did this and made it so it cannot be disabled, that would be an easy way to mitigate the risk.

Above a certain speed they don't work...and that speed is normally 30-40mph. It isn't hard to get above that...

And auto braking only detects metallic objects.

No, and no.

The auto-braking on my Jeep works at considerably above 40mph. If you are going fast, it might not stop you in time, but it certainly slows you down.

Equally, it will auto-brake if a branch is in front of the car when you pull into a parking space.

[AAz01]

VolvoT5 said:

This is just an incredibly stupid idea... but a nice cover for the government to grab yet more data and therefore control.

Isn't it funny how the solution to every single problem is either:
a) Give us more money
or
b) We need to take away some more of your privacy

[Glasgowrob]

S11Steve said:

Virtually every hire company offering self-drive hire insurance needs trackers to obtain cover, even then it's still third party only, and usually carries a hefty excess.

As someone mentioned above, it's already nearly impossible to hire a van with insurance in certain postcode areas.

sounds like this could be implemented in all of 5 minutes then, reading your comments and those above. It does seem like theres systems and mechanisms in place that this could have been done very discretely and left the suicide jockeys none the wiser

[HTP99]

loafer123 said:

HTP99 said:

GroundEffect said:

loafer123 said:

There is a good suggestion in a letter in the Telegraph this morning;

Only allow vehicles with automatic braking to be hired.

If they did this and made it so it cannot be disabled, that would be an easy way to mitigate the risk.

Above a certain speed they don't work...and that speed is normally 30-40mph. It isn't hard to get above that...

And auto braking only detects metallic objects.

No, and no.

The auto-braking on my Jeep works at considerably above 40mph. If you are going fast, it might not stop you in time, but it certainly slows you down.

Equally, it will auto-brake if a branch is in front of the car when you pull into a parking space.

Actually I stand partly corrected, it all depends on the type of system used as to what objects can be detected and the speeds that it operates at.

[roachcoach]

So apparently the government are so hard of thinking as to actually believe that people hell bent on mass murder will not stoop to nicking a van?

The stupidity is such that even reading the idea made me squint.