A suspect was arrested after allegedly stealing construction equipment and driving it through the North Park neighborhood of San Diego early Sunday, according to the San Diego Police Department. A social media video that circulated online recorded the equipment being driven along University Avenue, ABC 10News reported.
The video is quite surreal when you really look at it. It shows the piece of equipment moving down University Avenue in the early morning hours, which looks quite out of place as there aren’t many, if any, other cars in sight. ABC 10News captured the aftermath at the scene, which included damage to some poles. And you can also see the construction vehicle moving past restaurants like KFC, looking majorly out of place.
Beyond the fact that the construction equipment was being (pretty blatantly) stolen, additional details are pretty limited at this time. The extent of the damage on University Avenue isn’t entirely clear, and police haven’t released the type of equipment taken or where it was reported stolen. It also hasn’t been announced whether the suspect was arrested for taking part in the theft yet or not, either.
But there’s one positive part of the story: no injuries were mentioned in connection with the incident. It is, however, unfortunate that someone wanted to interrupt the construction work out of selfishness. Construction equipment is pricey and unwieldy, and it’s one of the last things you should make a target for theft.
Why Construction Sites Are Frequent Theft Targets
Construction equipment is a common target for theft. And it isn’t particularly hard to find some to stela. Job sites are often left unattended overnight and on weekends, the machines are large and easy to spot but rarely locked to anything fixed, and many pieces start with a common key or no key at all, which is a longstanding weakness in heavy equipment design. Idle equipment left on a site is essentially an unguarded, five-figure asset exposed to the elements.
The National Equipment Register and the National Insurance Crime Bureau have estimated that heavy equipment theft costs owners between $300 million and $1 billion a year in the United States. Recovery rates are pretty low, too. Unlike a car, construction equipment can be hard to trace once it leaves a site, which is one reason thefts often go unsolved. Recovery improves when a machine has a registered identification number or a GPS tracker. In this situation, however, it’s not clear whether that will make much of a difference.
Our Take
It’s not every day you see a bunch of heavy-duty equipment driving around a public road. A backhoe racing down a main street before getting cornered by the cops is definitely an entertaining video.
However, there’s a reason these vehicles aren’t meant for the street, as you can see by the damaged poles and such. At least nobody was hurt, and the equipment was returned.
But the lesson remains: A backhoe isn’t a commuter.