Caravan Break in and Theft on French Service Station Areas

[ed1]

its a bit of both.....but if holland is ok i might go there first...as it will be our first trip overseas with a caravan....it does seem a bit overboard though (no pun intended)each to their own....im still smiling...thankyou for your advice

 

[Guest]

Edwina we live in Fance and have lived in other countries as well, do not let these silly tales put you off going to France.

A family friend was robbed recently in Holland as he parked his car so you take your chances wherever you go!

My wife and I have stopped at times at services over a lot of years with no problems and as French residents we and our French friends and neighbours have no wories about these stories.

As for Pamela's post, I'm sorry to hear of your loss but have to qestion your actions. No worry about where you stopped but serious concerns about actions when travelling.

My late father warned me as a youngster about strange foreign ways after his time in India, Egypt, Singapore and many other places.

Money is always split up, so you are unlikely to lose it all, we carry numerous cards but never all together!

When in hotels or caravan we do not rely on the door locks!

Valuables and keys are stored at night with great care and thought.

I'm sorry but if somebody is able to enter your domain and get away with all your valuables whilst five of you are sleeping you

are negligent!

Our caravan security does not rely on the very basic locks when we retire to bed and any intruder would have a long hard search to find anything of worth and would have to drag us from the van.

May be the old fellas warning of times long ago and our own nomadic life has made us over cautious when away from home, but your finding re banks and consulates etc reinforces our actions as wise moves.

ALL your valuables taken! I think you should be questioning your security actions when travelling.

We travel with a Vaio notebook pc that my daughter could not find in our caravan even after a really good search with out us

sleeping in the caravan.

Keys. money, passports and documents are not to much of a problem to put very well out of the way even in the unlikely event of being knocked out by gas that is said to leave the person feeling very "hung over".

 

[MONKEY1]

Just to recap my position on this but as someone who works in the logistics industry (transport to those of you over 40)

Gassing is a real problem in Belgium, France, Spain, It's a real problem when it happens to you !! Luckily It hasn't happen to us; but I know of two truck drives who both have been gassed one literally fell out of his truck in a heap. The other was admitted to hospital in Lille with breathing difficulties.

There lots of stories on Motor home forum's and Truck drivers forums and it's not something I think most people boast about.

A gas attack alarm often has other functionality such as a smoke and carbon monoxide alarm. It's not just caravaners.

This though does need to be put in prospective. Because of the sheer numbers of trucks and caravanners moving around during the summer the chances of it happening to you must be well over 100000 to one !!

Recently there was debate a scare stories about whether someone should stay at a CC site (Abbeywood) because it is is in inner London. It's a lit like BBC Crime watch because the media gives a portrayal of crime activity we think it is much more prevalent than it is.

Having said that a colleague today told me their doctors surgery was broken into and the only thing they nicked was used needles !! Now that worries me far more than staying in an aire !!

MH

 

[James_374224753]

I went to PC World in Slough bought a laptop put it on the back seat. First traffic lights I came to a breeze block came through the side window. Asian lad grabbed laptop jumped back into a car with his two mates and sped off. Car had false plates . Police not interested, PC World not interested. At the time I had rotwiller in boot behind dog guard. Just to add a bit of perspective there are bad guys everywhere.

 

[MikeP]

They probably spotted you at the checkout, and followed you from there.

 

[Clive-Cardiff]

Hi All, We have not been robbed as described but we have spoken to a couple that had. This prompted a couple of mods in the van. First I fitted a safe bolted through the floor of the van. Second was a rape alarm that was activated by pulling a small pin from the body of the alarm. The alarm was attached to the wall alongside the van door using stick on velcro so the it can be removed when not in use. The pin has a small lanyard which we attach to a small adhesive hook on the door.

When the door is opened there is an ear splitting shriek from the alarm such that it is very uncortable to stand close.

With these mods we do feel a lot safer.

 

[Arrow1]

Hi everyone !!

We had experience of this problem last year, we travelled to south of Lyon and pulled into a very large service station....thinking this would be safe! We had two different sets of people try to break into our van, luckily I am a very light sleeper and heard the catch go on the door handle each time...needless to say they ran off following my shouts.

We are travelling via eurotunnel this year, does anyone have any tips of where to stop as close as possible to Calais ? we are travelling on a night crossing and so want to get our heads down asap once arriving in Calais.

Thanks

Tracy

City Europe, the big Carrefour supermarket has a carpark for buses. I see several caravanners and campervans there overnight. The hyper-massive-superstore opens 9am to get any fresh goods ready for the journey onwards. The buspark is sited next to a building I am told is the main police headquarters for Calais. City Europe is a stonethrow from Eurotunnel exit. (If they opened one gate, you could go straight into City Europe from the Eurotunnel complex.)