March 31, 2008

A Sheffield car thief, who did a fast one with a Mercedes Sprinter van, found himself with nowhere to run when police used the van’s TomTom sat nav to track him down. 

The van, belonging to local company Dedicated Couriers, was left unattended for seconds while the driver was getting a delivery note signed.  This was all the time needed for the thief to strike, despite being in a secure compound at a customers premises.

The TomTom WORK’s GO 715 unit comes with a tracking device.  Eric Whittaker, Dedicated Courier’s managing director, uses the GPS Navigation System for locating and communicating with his vehicles, while in the office.

He said,   “This enabled me to relay precise details of the van’s position to the Police and they immediately alerted their helicopter. Within a very short time they had tracked the stolen vehicle down to an area of Rotherham, an arrest was made and our van was recovered intact.

“Interestingly this was not a fixed unit in this vehicle. All of our TomTom GO units are portable and able to be moved easily between any of the 26 vans that we run. Our principal reason for using them is to relay collection information direct to the driver without having to call his mobile ‘phone.

“Having a tracking capability built into the TomTom unit is a bonus. And what a good bonus it has proved to be. We got our vehicle back the same day and the Police took a vehicle thief off the streets of Sheffield. Superb result for TomTom WORK and super work by the South Yorkshire Police!”

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