Your vehicles, machinery and equipment
Which of the following measures do you take to secure your tools, machinery, vehicles and equipment?
Your vehicles, machinery and equipment
Where possible, store farm machinery in a locked shed, preferably in sight of a house, or grouped together in a highly visible area. If a shed is impractical or isn’t available, a fenced enclosure that can be padlocked is a good alternative.
The safest place for your car or ute is inside a locked garage. If you don’t have a garage, keeping it in a carport, shed or behind a locked gate is your next safest option. If that’s not possible, park it close to your house in a spot where you can keep an eye on it.
Try not to leave machinery sitting unattended in paddocks overnight. Bring it home if you can and park it in a locked shed or within view of
your house. However, if it’s necessary to leave it out, remove the keys, lock the cabs and, if possible, disable it by removing the distributor cap or battery. Be sure to park it out of sight of public roads—hide it behind trees, a hill or a dam bank.
Whenever you get off your quad bike or motorbike, always remove the keys from the ignition and take them with you, even if you’re just popping into the house or shed for a few minutes. If you’ve finished for the day, lock your bikes away in a shed overnight.
Try to avoid leaving valuable equipment and tools laying around inside machinery, on vehicle trays or out in the open, where an opportunistic thief can easily grab them. Lock them away in a shed, or a steel toolbox securely attached to the vehicle and padlocked.
Whenever you’re leaving a vehicle or machinery unattended, remove keys, garage remotes and valuable items, close windows and lock doors and/or cabs.
Which of the following steps do you take to protect your machinery and equipment?
Keep an inventory of your machinery, equipment and valuable tools. Record their brands, model and serial numbers. For larger farm machinery, record the chassis number as well. If they are stolen, this record can be given to police and your insurer.
Take photos or video of valuable tools and machinery, along with the original receipt or invoice. These will be handy if your equipment is stolen and you need to make an insurance claim or prove ownership.
Mark machinery, equipment and valuable tools with a “V” and your Victorian driver’s licence number. This will help police to return your items if they are stolen and recovered. If you don’t have a driver’s licence, then use a similar personal identifier. Mark larger items in at least 2 places and mark any easily removable parts as well (such as radios).
There a variety of options for marking your property, including welding, etching, metal punching, chemical marking, and microdot technology. Be sure to advertise that your property has been marked by attaching labels, signs or stickers on machinery, equipment, buildings, fences and/or gates.
Be sure to let potential intruders know that your property has been marked by attaching warning labels, signs or stickers on machinery, equipment, buildings, gates and/or fences. It can make them think twice about stealing your stuff.
Attach GPS trackers to machinery and other valuable farming equipment. Trackers use a mobile phone network to transmit the GPS location to a website which the owner can log into and locate the item or track its movement.
