Update on gas attacks

• Thursday, 8 November 2007
• Mike Cazalet
• 0 Comments

My wife and I are planning a grand tour taking a couple of months to visit many of the places in Europe we've always wanted to go to. One issue worries us, however, the reports of motor caravanners being attacked with some sort of sleeping gas and then being robbed. Having heard nothing about this for some time, can we assume that the thieves have moved on to more profitable ways of making money?
Mr and Mrs Herbert, Cheltenham

MIKE SAYS
The number of attacks is just as it has been for the last few years – very few and invariably when motor caravanners stop overnight in lay-bys and in motorway Aires.

What has changed is the number of 'experts' that have come crawling out of the woodwork to say that in their view there have never been any sleeping gas attacks. Those that deny these attacks happen claim that the gas the thieves use would either kill people or smells so bad people would realise that something is wrong and get out of their motor caravan.

The published evidence clearly shows that the thieves only target those who they can reasonably assume are exhausted after a long day behind the wheel. Rather than putting the victims to sleep, the gas merely deepens what is already a deep sleep, often made deeper by dehydration.

The best advice I can give is to ensure you always stay on an established campsite, as there are no records of people staying on campsites being attacked.