In all my years of being a driver, the idea of someone breaking into my trailer to get what’s inside was always something I thought about. Being a local driver for the past few years has almost given me a sense of false security, being that I typically don’t park with freight in the box all too often and deliver most of my loads straight on through on the same day they’re picked up. Since getting my own dry van trailer however, I have found the need to occasionally load the day before in order to get freight here that delivers early in the morning on the next business day. Not having too many places to park 75 feet of truck and trailer in Southern California, I rent a space from a local secure fenced yard, along with about 
30 other drivers and fleet trailers parked there. Surely this fenced yard that has constant movement throughout the property except for about 6 hours of the day, is locked up tight during its un-occupied hours, and had no history of theft in its past was a safe bet for anyone to park in…so I though. It only took one act of violation from another person to prove how false my sense of security was!
Heading in for the end of the day empty to park, just like most days, I received a call from a broker I was hauling a load for the next morning. He asked if I wouldn’t mind making an additional pickup on my way home for the same customer I was loading and delivering to the next morning. Liking the thought of making a little extra money, just to sit on 71 boxes overnight that picked up on my way home, I gladly accepted the additional stop. When it came time to park my beast for the night I went through my usual routine, starting with a walk-around post-trip inspection, unloading my ice chest and backpack into my car, then walked to the tail of my trailer and put my trusty padlock on the locking door of my trailer. The next morning when I arrived to get started, it was just like every other morning. I loaded up, popped the hood to check the engine, and walked around for a proper pre-trip. Unfortunately, when I walked around to the tail of the trailer, what I saw was far from the ordinary. Immediately upon seeing my trailer doors 
cracked open, as if someone tried to shut them in a hurry, I knew this was not going to be good. There it was as I shined my light on the floor, my trusty padlock lying on the ground, cut clean by what seemed to be a pair of heavy duty bolt cutters. I proceeded to pull the trailer out to open my swing doors, count the boxes inside and call the local police for a report. After a final tally, I was lucky that the thieves only got away with one box, which the officer said makes him suspect that I caught them in the act as I pulled up in my car to start my day.
Following the incident, I have had a horrible feeling of someone whose personal space has been violated. Perhaps this is because I have such a hard time wrapping my head around the thought of ever stealing something from someone else. Needless to say, my false sense of security has been wiped out and I have gone to “Fort Knox-like” measures to now secure my cargo that I will park with in the future. Upon scouring the Internet for the best security I could afford on a single truck owner-operator’s budget, I decided to apply a two-fold security option to my trailer to deter cargo thieves in the future. The first is beefing up from one padlock on the locking door latch to two total, one on each latch. Besides 
having two, I made sure both of them were boron-carbide commercial-grade locks, highly resistant to bolt cutters and saws. The second step in my new respect for cargo security came in the form of my purchasing “The Enforcer” cargo door locking mechanism. This impressive piece of heavyweight, heavy gauge steel would make any thief turn to an easier target in most cases. With a cost somewhere between $140 and $170 depending on where you buy it, “The Enforcer” rings in at a price most owner-operators are able to pay to protect their freight.
Lucky for my sake I was not hauling anything too valuable and it was just one box valued at around $100 that I will have to settle a claim for. Nonetheless, being a claim that I will most likely have to pay, it affected my bottom line and will never have me become complacent again about the issue of cargo security. Be sure that you take the proper measures to secure both your empty and loaded trailers so that you do not become a victim of cargo thieves preying on the fact that a lot of us haul around some pretty pricey commodities. Never again will I be lured again into a false sense of security and hopefully you can learn from my mistake so that you do not become an easy target as well!