Cape Girardeau gas stations are switching to a pre pay system after suffering from a number of drive offs. 306 incidents occurred in the past seven months.
While a large number of these drive offs are unintentional, theft of gasoline is still rampant. Corporal Ike Hammonds of the Cape Girardeau Police Department spends nearly 80% of his time investigating drive offs, many of which end up being paid without criminal charges, according to Officer Darin Hickey.
“Unfortunately because we are here in Cape Girardeau and we’re on the interstate, we do deal with people that are just passing through, that are from out of state,” Hickey said. “And obviously those are extremely hard to follow up with.”
Officer Darin Hickey says a solution has been found.
“All of the owners of the stations met here at the police department, and they came to an agreement that they would, on May the first, switch over to prepay only,” Hickey said.
This will be a relief to station owners, and free up valuable police time for more important tasks.
