Mystery gas attacks on lorry drivers

[tolman]

I guess we'll have to wait for the blood test results.

Even if someone could access a suitable knockout gas, is there an easy-access vent for pumping gas into a cab before breaking in, in various different models of cab?
If not, the prospect still exists of having a fight after breaking in if someone wakes up (or is already awake).

It would seem a risky thing to do to hang around outside a cab long enough to be sure a knockout gas had actually worked, at least it would be somewhere where there were other vehicles around.

As things stand, if a truck owner was worried about something like this happening, maybe the best thing would be a seriously loud external alarm that triggers when a door is opened, with a hidden arm/disarm switch inside the cab.
Even if someone *is* unconscious in the back, I can't see many people hanging around for long to look for swag if there's a deafening alarm going off and/or lights flashing.
I'm sure a lot of people would know a friendly mechanic who could lash something up in no time.
Parts would be pretty cheap - just need an alarm, a switch, and some latching mechanism to keep the alarm running even after the door light-sensor switch is re-closed, maybe with a timer to avoid it going on indefinitely, but that'd be pretty trivial electronics to make, if there was a market.

I guess if there were actually enough confirmed cases, like checkable police reports passed on to some national haulier's body or reported to the UK police, then at least some authoritative statement could be made that there really were X people who had at least reported something, though I guess what would really be needed was actual proof that some knockout agent was being used.

As long as the idea seems to carry the baggage of being an alleged urban myth, it's likely that even direct anecdotes may risk being ignored even if they're accurate (since someone seeing them on the internet doesn't have any way of knowing if they are accurate).

[chaggle]

Would the people doing the stealing have to wear gas masks?

[Pebble]

I awoke sometime during the night with a thumping headache and the amount I was sweating, could have sunk the Titanic. I had not been feeling 100% a couple of days before this, so thought I just had a severe cold and chill and went back to sleep.

So, sorry for the long 1st post, but urban myth????????????



I think not.

Seems like an awful lot of effort being implied for a few Euros and a pay as you go phone. Is your 'cold' theory not just as likely?

[Croydon Bob]

So, sorry for the long 1st post, but urban myth????????????


I think not.

I still think so.

Firstly: an urban myth can actually happen. The dog in the microwave seems to have really happened at least twice since the urban legend began.

Secondly: (With apologies for repeating points made by others). A post on an internet forum proves nothing. More than that, your post is typical of the urban legend story, complete with the flaws. What kind of gas was used? How was it squirted into the cab? Why would someone use some expensive and unknown-to-experts gas and delivery system to nick some cash and not even take credit cards?

I look forward to seeing some hard evidence that proves me wrong; but I'm not going to hold my breath.

Hold my breath - geddit?

[tolman]

There are various reports claiming that ether is being used, though even leaving aside the flammability issue, it doesn't seem that there's a huge difference between an effective dose of ether and a dangerous one, and I haven't yet seen reports of numerous people being found dead in their cabs having swallowed their tongues or choked on their own vomit.

I did see a survey suggesting that 9% of respondents had been victims, 4% more than once (which statistically seems like a peculiarly large number of unlucky multiple victims), though it was being quoted by someone selling protective alarms.

[skbuncks]

Sexsomnia: a form of non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep disorder (similar to sleepwalking) that causes people to engage in sexual acts while they are asleep

...I take it she didn't take plastic...



skb

[Croydon Bob]

...I take it she didn't take plastic...

20ish years ago a friend of mine claimed to have been robbed at gunpoint in Amsterdam. The police didn't believe him and told him he had been robbed by a prostitute. He insisted that it really had been in the street at gunpoint. They told him to F off. Obviously my knowledge of this story is entirely second hand and I have no idea what really happened to him. But it does suggest that people do make up "I woz robbed" lies to cover up other activities. Similarly some people probably insist "I woz gassed" to cover their embarrassment at sleeping through a robbery.

[Croydon Bob]

There are various reports claiming that ether is being used, though even leaving aside the flammability issue, it doesn't seem that there's a huge difference between an effective dose of ether and a dangerous one, and I haven't yet seen reports of numerous people being found dead in their cabs having swallowed their tongues or choked on their own vomit.

Ether is really very unlikely for the reasons you set out. It simply wouldn't work in a pumping into house or cab situation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diethyl_ether

[tolman]

I'd have thought that if there were as many robberies happening as some people claim, there'd either be a proper understanding of what happened (types of gas, etc), or there'd be a pretty serious effort to find out, in terms of medical tests.

The survey results (from 2007) at http://www.viperguard.co.uk/road-tra...-news?start=15 looked interesting.

I'm not an expert statistician, but I'd have thought that if 9% of survey respondents had actually been victims, fewer than 4% of respondents would have been multiple victims unless there was something making certain people or vehicles into particular targets(*), and more than 29% of people would have known a victim.
Isn't an attack the kind of thing that would get talked about a lot between drivers, if only to warn each other of what was happening?

(*One possibility would be that a survey covered lots of UK drivers, only a fraction of whom travel abroad, but then that in turn would suggest the chances of having been attacked for international drivers would be rather larger than 9%.)

I wonder how many reports there are of gas alarms actually going off and waking someone up?