A new incident-reporting system is to be introduced to Dunedin petrol stations to make it easier for police to catch petrol thieves.
Sergeant Tony Ritchie, of the Dunedin police intelligence unit, said the two-page report would be filled out immediately after a theft, even before calling police.
The offence report form has been used successfully in Christchurch for some time.
Staff at service stations fill out the form including details of the vehicle, its occupant/s and the nature of the theft.
No particular incident prompted its introduction to in Dunedin, Sgt Ritchie said.
The report was just another tool at the police's disposal and made it easier for police to track down alleged offenders if they (police) were unable to immediately attend an incident at a service station.
About four petrol thefts are reported each month and police had not noticed any significant increase in such incidents, which usually amounted to between $80 to $100 of petrol each time, Sgt Ritchie said.
Petrol companies had not been approached yet, but because the report was already used in Christchurch he hoped they would be open to the idea.
A Shell service station spokeswoman said the company was happy to use the forms if they helped police catch thieves.
Shell had noticed no significant increase in petrol thefts following price increases, she said. Other companies contacted agreed.
All said they had policies in place to try and keep petrol thefts to a minimum, including having staff do the pumping, not letting the petrol flow until an attendant had sighted a number plate and only allowing pre-paid pumping at night or at high-risk service stations.
Deterrants such as pop-up spikes, which have been recently used at some British service stations to deflate the tyres of escaping offenders, were "not even vaguely on the cards", a BP spokeswoman said.
