Victoria Police push for prepaid petrol to eradicate petrol drive-offs

Wayne Flower
September 04, 2012
Herald Sun

POLICE Commissioner Ken Lay will meet with petrol industry bosses within a week to intensify the force’s push for prepaid petrol.

Mr Lay has long wanted people to pay before they pump fuel to eradicate petrol drive-offs and number plate theft. The offences consume thousands of hours of police time each year.

In Victoria there were 5932 petrol drive-offs last year, an increase of 16.5 per cent on the previous year.

Mr Lay said the community should not need to underwrite criminal activity at the petrol pump.

“We estimate 15,000 offences a year occur from petrol drive-offs. There is one very simple solution and that is prepaid petrol,” Mr Lay said.

The commissioner will meet with industry stakeholders this week to encourage them to take more responsibility for the problem.

“We’re pushing this and pushing this hard, and if the community is going to have a reduced crime rate, things like this are a really simple way of getting on top of things,” he said.

“This is not Victoria Police’s problem alone.”

Despite his passion for prepaid fuel, Mr Lay said he could not force petrol stations to use the system.

“I hear a whole lot of reasons why they can’t do it, but thousands and thousands of police hours are taken up every year by taking these reports, investigating these matters, that could be simply stopped by a change of process.”