Armored trucks, hurtling out of control

March 11, 2020 6:13 AM

The Tampa Bay Times investigation on the armored truck company, GardaWorld, in case we needed any other reasons to stay home in 2020.
posted by hilaryjade (23 comments total)

From the article: "Forty-eight of the 56 Garda drivers interviewed by the Times described trucks lacking the most basic feature of a vehicle designed to guard millions: functional locks. Drivers have used rope or zip ties to keep doors shut. One jammed wads of paper in the handle."

I imagine this being made public is thrilling Garda executives even more than exposing their traffic safety liabilities, since the latter are effectively irrelevant in a US where the safety regulators have been drowned in a bathtub.
posted by at by at 6:29 AM on March 11, 2020 [11 favorites]

Capitalism is killing us all.
posted by seanmpuckett at 6:37 AM on March 11, 2020 [3 favorites]

It appears capitalism can't even keep capital secure.
posted by Thorzdad at 6:42 AM on March 11, 2020 [13 favorites]

That is not a reason to stay home in 2020.
posted by CynicalKnight at 7:05 AM on March 11, 2020 [1 favorite]

"I'll use a stolen ambulance to block the armored truck under the overpass. After Mike rams it with the semi, Chris will use high explosives to open the back door."

"I think this is a Garda truck."

"In that case we'll just follow it around and wait for the money to fall out."
posted by justkevin at 7:12 AM on March 11, 2020 [35 favorites]

I think if capitalism had a commandment, it would be something like "profit for me, cost for thee". They seem to be really living that truth at Garda.
posted by LegallyBread at 7:17 AM on March 11, 2020 [10 favorites]

This reinforces my idea that all armored trucks are actually about as secure as the one in Groundhog Day, requiring only a whistling Bill Murray to casually grab a duffel bag full of cash as he walks by the two guards arguing.
posted by Mayor West at 7:18 AM on March 11, 2020 [4 favorites]

ooh, talk about buried lede/local interest. About ¼ in:

… Garda’s founder and CEO is an investor in the group trying to bring the Tampa Bay Rays to Montreal to play half their games.

Still doesn't stop the company being appalling, though.
posted by scruss at 7:21 AM on March 11, 2020

A testament to what investigative reporters can do if they have the resources.

The Times investigation is “baseless and unfounded, and relies on outdated, misleading data and conclusions,” they wrote. “GardaWorld Cash Services has in recent years invested significantly in enhanced safety training and fleet maintenance.”

[...]

The Times investigation showed a decade-long pattern of dangerous behavior. It is based on thousands of pages of court records, police reports, government inspections, internal company documents and photos and videos taken by workers.

Ninety current and former Garda employees spoke to the Times about what it was like to drive an armored truck, run a branch, oversee maintenance and make high-level corporate decisions. They described experiences that went far beyond the occasional accident any national carrier would expect. Employees who raised concerns said they often were disregarded.

Here is the TBT Investigative Fund donation page.
posted by Not A Thing at 7:58 AM on March 11, 2020 [11 favorites]

This is good reporting. Especially the reporting on the company blustering legal threats about the reporting:

“Today our business is a professional, industry leading organization,” the company said. “To compare our business today to what it was when we started consolidating the market in 2008 is false and misleading.”

In the federal data, 2018 was the company’s worst year, measured by crashes per mile.

The second-worst year was 2019.

posted by solotoro at 8:04 AM on March 11, 2020 [15 favorites]

I am appalled but also almost amused by the threats that Garda sent to the NYTimes. I guess they really feel so invincible that they can't pause to consider how investigative journalism...works?
posted by desuetude at 8:05 AM on March 11, 2020

This article is published by the Tampa Bay Times.
posted by biogeo at 8:10 AM on March 11, 2020 [8 favorites]

We really need a death penalty for corporations. Behavior like this should result in the leadership doing jail time and all the company's assets being seized and redistributed to its more responsible competitors if any exist (as it seems there do in this case) or controlled by the government until a generation of management with less psychopathic tendencies is trained up, if no suitable private stewards for its assets already exist.

Also a business strategy of rapid growth by "consolidation" is monopolistic and should trigger anti-trust laws.

I don't expect to see either of these things happen in my lifetime.
posted by biogeo at 8:19 AM on March 11, 2020 [18 favorites]

The excessive demands on employees, lack of training, and inadequate maintenance are shocking, but with all that the company's safety record is only 56% worse than Brinks'. I think GardaWorld's problems may just be an extreme example of industry-wide issues.
posted by Joe in Australia at 8:52 AM on March 11, 2020 [3 favorites]

This is one helluva reporting job.

My own experience with armored trucks is they all belch the dirtiest, foulest exhaust, like they're rolling coal or something. I hate getting stuck behind them in traffic.
posted by Caxton1476 at 9:04 AM on March 11, 2020

Circa 1994, early 1995, I was part of a small company in a building with a Brinks branch. It was a startup, we were trying for relatively high uptime, I was in my 20s, so there was a lot of odd hours in and out.

Those fuckers could not follow the building alarm protocol for love or money. And if that's what the drivers were up to, I hate to think what management was like.
posted by straw at 9:51 AM on March 11, 2020

I am appalled but also almost amused by the threats that Garda sent to the NYTimes. I guess they really feel so invincible that they can't pause to consider how investigative journalism...works?

> This article is published by the Tampa Bay Times.

Ungh, how did I even? Distracted typing fingers-brain defaulted to the wrong newspaper? Sorry, Tampa Bay Times!
posted by desuetude at 12:40 PM on March 11, 2020 [1 favorite]

Stop, stop, stop...

New York and Tampa Bay are two different places?
posted by fallingbadgers at 8:00 PM on March 11, 2020 [1 favorite]

My own experience with armored trucks is they all belch the dirtiest, foulest exhaust, like they're rolling coal or something.

Like a lot of specialty mobile equipment the average fleet age of armoured trucks is likely significantly older than the median. When a new truck costs several multiples of the cost of a plain truck it's worthwhile to perform maintenance that wouldn't be cost effective on a cheaper vehicle. So they are on average going to have poorer tailpipe emissions than other vehicles.

They are also stupendously heavy for their size and therefor have pretty large engines.
posted by Mitheral at 9:11 PM on March 11, 2020

That might work for one off and small transfers but most companies hiring armoured car service need that service regularly or are moving large masses of cash. Cash is heavy, especially coins. Load up a civic with 10 boxes of office paper and you are going to have some problems. Do it everyday and your fleet age is going to take a nose dive.
posted by Mitheral at 9:41 AM on March 12, 2020

Can confirm how absurdly heavy armoured vehicles are. A factory I audited was sidelining in my old industry to keep a large piece of equipment busier. Their core business was armoured vehicles. They bought stock vehicles (always with the largest engine but most basic trim), ripped everything out, lined the body with steel plates, replaced the glass with redonkulously thick bullet-proof stuff and added run-flat tyres. They'd just finished a very deniable-looking Toyota Camry for _____'s diplomatic corps, and at first glance you didn't notice the rather tall tyres, the way the window glass didn't quite curve the right way and the double exhaust on the back. Opening the door, though, needed both hands: the glass was as thick as a book and vault-like hinges and locks took the weight. My abiding memory is of the huge stillage full of discarded window motors, far too weak to move the modded vehicles' slabs.

The floor manager "couldn't remember" where the anonymous beige Sprinter with the luxury bar fittings and the pop-up machine gun turret was going, though.
posted by scruss at 10:02 AM on March 12, 2020 [4 favorites]

> I’ve always thought the most effective approach to moving cash around would be stealth, not armor. Like a fleet of beater Honda Civics.

Thieves keep their eyes out for the unarmored vehicles that had been stopped near the staff entrances, and follow them until there was a safe place (for the thieves) to intercept.
posted by at by at 3:52 PM on March 12, 2020

What's the imagined use case for the armour? From some of the accidents it doesn't look like the sort of thing that would stop a crowbar, let alone an angle grinder.
posted by Joe in Australia at 4:45 PM on March 12, 2020