8 ms·

I wish bicycle theft was tackled in a similar fashion. A combination of factors seems to be at play here: Photo ID required to sell the car and technological hu

I wish bicycle theft was tackled in a similar fashion. A combination of factors seems to be at play here: Photo ID required to sell the car and technological hurdles that are too hard to overcome for small criminals. With embedded computer chips being so cheap nowadays, surely it should be possible to embed some sort of tracking system in bicycle frames.

da02 12y ago
Just out of curiosity, what town or city do you live in? How many times has it happened to you?
- Cthulhu_ 12y ago
  In the Netherlands / Amsterdam it happens all the time - to be fair, people have adjusted to it, all you see is very cheap old bicycles, and it's not uncommon to just steal someone else's bike if your own gets stolen. I read a cute news bulletin from the police the other day that they arrested a 60-some year old bike thief using a 'lure bike'. They do that regularly actually: https://www.google.com/search?q=lokfiets+site:politie.nl https://www.google.com/search?q=lokfiets+site:politie.nl Ahem. Anyway, point is, over here we adjusted by not owning expensive bicycles for the daily commute, so that's another way to deal with it.
  - rectangletangle 12y ago
    If anything Amsterdam probably has too many bikes. They're literally covering every surface that you can lock one on to, often several layers deep. They're almost like barnacles there. This is exacerbated by the old infrastructure that isn't quite up to par with cities like Rotterdam.
    - digitalengineer 12y ago
      Well yeah Rotterdam had the heart bombed out of it in WW2. So no more narrow streets downtown.
- lmm 12y ago
  I live in London and I've had my bike stolen around once a year; four times now. I try to treat it as just a cost of life (the bike is still saving me money compared to train tickets), but it gets to be irritating. I've got a cycling holiday booked next month and I'm terrified my bike's going to be stolen just before I go.
  - aphexairlines 12y ago
    Have you tried a wheel lock? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_lock#Wheel_lock http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_lock#Wheel_lock Someone walking around London carrying a bike rather than riding it would look pretty suspicious -- wouldn't police stop someone like that and check the registration sticker?
    - lmm 12y ago
      The first time I just locked the wheel. Every time since I've used more advanced locks. It was never unlocked. The last time one was stolen the thieves left the back wheel (locked to a stand) behind, unscrewed it and cut through the cable that was holding the frame. AIUI bike theft is mostly organized, they take a whole load and throw them in the back of a van, rather than carrying them around.
michaelt 12y ago
Well, with modern car immobilisers you can't bypass them or break them, because they're built right into the ECU that runs the spark plugs and whatnot. There's not really an equivalent for that in bicycles - a vital electronic component that, if removed, makes the bike unusable. Sure, you can get a bike tracker on ebay, but if trackers were making a significant dent in bicycle theft, thieves would just look for them and remove or disable them. For trackers to get a signal the antennas have to be exposed, making it a simple enough matter to put a nail through the patch antenna.
- svantana 12y ago
  Well surely the entire bicycle frame could be used as an antenna? Then the electronics could fit deep inside the frame, which would make it quite difficult to disable. A problem would be how to power the device though.
  - infinite8s 12y ago
    Maybe the tracker could be powered by usage of the bike.
    - gambiting 12y ago
      You want the wheels on a bike to spin as freely as possible, any added resistance is unwelcome because it makes cycling harder - and you would need to add resistance to generate electricity. Personally I even hate the dynamos that power the lights, because their effect can definitely be felt when you ride.
      - annnnd 12y ago
        I wonder if vibration would suffice? Depends on the state of the roads I guess. ;)
      - jarek 12y ago
        Modern electronics don't really need that much, and/or the dynamos have improved. I had a bike with 90s-style dynamo and it was indeed a slight pain. Today I ride Bixi/Alta bikeshare bicycles - they have something to power the lights, but any impedance it creates is too small to notice.
annnnd 12y ago
Not just bicycles, other sports equipment could be protected by such anti-theft devices (maybe even at the discretion of the owner). Are there any such tracking bugs already on the market?
leke 12y ago
How about RFID chips built inside the frame. Then your town would make hidden readers, placed around the city (close to cameras), that could alert authorities of a reported stolen bicycle being ridden. Make the thieves pay a hefty fine to recouporate some of the expense of the system.
- joosters 12y ago
  So you would like the government to track the location and movement of all bicycles, each one tagged with the owner's ID? Can't imagine anyone would object to that smart idea :)
  - leke 12y ago
    Google, Apple, MS et al all track us by our phones and I think you know by now that the NSA, and police can also access that data. I wouldn't really object if the government knew when I cycled into town, and when I visited friends etc... if it would get my stolen bike back. There could also be a rule that only bikes reported stolen could be logged and alerted, but there could also be benefits if this rule was let slide. For example, popular cycling routes could be studied for prioritising path repairs, or the building of new cycle lanes.
- gambiting 12y ago
  The problem is that especially inside the EU, bikes are stolen almost in bulk, then loaded into trucks and taken outside the country - even if you get stopped at the border(which is super rare, thanks to the Schoengen zone), it's impossible to check the serial numbers of the bikes - if there are any databases, they are usually not ran by the police, and there are absolutely zero international databases for bikes. Eastern parts of EU are full of German, French, English bikes - where do you think they come from? I bet 90% of them were stolen, and the chance of recovering such bike is zero.
  - jkbyc 12y ago
    I can assure you that people in eastern Europe, the Czech republic at least, also do complain about having their nice new bikes stolen. Just to put things into perspective, eastern EU is not some wild west.
jzwinck 12y ago
If you want to reduce bicycle theft in the US, the solution is simple: drastically increase the penalties for perpetrators. Get caught stealing a bike? One year in jail. Adjust until the level of theft is where you want it to be. Stealing a bike is not just taking $300 or whatever from the owner. It's robbing that cyclist and would-be cyclists of the confidence to use their preferred mode of transportation, and deteriorating their health in the long term. This is a lot more damaging than non-cyclists often intuit, and insurance cannot cover it. The penalty for stealing bicycles should be closer to the penalty for stealing a car and intentionally injuring someone. Currently it's close to zero.
- thelettere 12y ago
  They've done studies on the effect of increasing penalties on crime, and it's virtually nil.
  - CalRobert 12y ago
    Who are "they"?
    - thelettere 12y ago
      Researchers. There have been innumerable studies on the subject - but really it's common sense. If you're a criminal you're unlikely to be particularly adept at the art of deliberation - otherwise you would choose a different way of life. But for evidence here's a somewhat recent review: http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/1147698?uid=3739920&uid=2&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21104508241367 http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/1147698?uid=3739920&ui... Also, interestingly, deterrence is not the primary reason most people push for harsher penalties. Rather it is punishment for its own sake: http://www.law.asu.edu/files/!NoTemplate/why%20do%20we%20punish%20-%20Robinson.pdf http://www.law.asu.edu/files/!NoTemplate/why%20do%20we%20pun...
  - MrBuddyCasino 12y ago
    In islamic countries with sharia law, nobody steals, since you risk loosing a hand. Not that I recommend that approach, but I'd be careful with such statements.
ck2 12y ago
Do you find police interested at all in helping recover a stolen bike? Unless you hand them GPS corordinates and a photo of the person taking it, they aren't going to do anything.
SeanDav 12y ago
Sometimes there is a huge financial incentive to avoid making something unprofitably to steal. For example it has long been technically possible to render stolen phones unusable but this has never been done because there is very little financial incentive to do so, in fact there is financial incentive not to do so because it would effect negatively effect sales of new phones if no phone got stolen. It would not surprise me at all if something similar was at play here with bicycles. If every bicycle had to be micro-doted (or chipped etc) and registered and bicycles were subject to spot checks, bicycle theft would fall hugely, but where is the incentive?
uptown 12y ago
Seems like some physical attributes of bicycles make them difficult to apply similar protections. I'd like to see a lock that has an acoustic alarm (similar to those panic keychains that emit a very loud high-pitched sound when activated) combined with a dye-pack component that emits a plume of bank-grade dye when compromised. Add those to a best-in-class lock design and I think you'd have a decent deterrent.

da02 12y ago

Just out of curiosity, what town or city do you live in? How many times has it happened to you?

Cthulhu_ 12y ago
In the Netherlands / Amsterdam it happens all the time - to be fair, people have adjusted to it, all you see is very cheap old bicycles, and it's not uncommon to just steal someone else's bike if your own gets stolen. I read a cute news bulletin from the police the other day that they arrested a 60-some year old bike thief using a 'lure bike'. They do that regularly actually: https://www.google.com/search?q=lokfiets+site:politie.nl https://www.google.com/search?q=lokfiets+site:politie.nl Ahem. Anyway, point is, over here we adjusted by not owning expensive bicycles for the daily commute, so that's another way to deal with it.
- rectangletangle 12y ago
  If anything Amsterdam probably has too many bikes. They're literally covering every surface that you can lock one on to, often several layers deep. They're almost like barnacles there. This is exacerbated by the old infrastructure that isn't quite up to par with cities like Rotterdam.
  - digitalengineer 12y ago
    Well yeah Rotterdam had the heart bombed out of it in WW2. So no more narrow streets downtown.
lmm 12y ago
I live in London and I've had my bike stolen around once a year; four times now. I try to treat it as just a cost of life (the bike is still saving me money compared to train tickets), but it gets to be irritating. I've got a cycling holiday booked next month and I'm terrified my bike's going to be stolen just before I go.
- aphexairlines 12y ago
  Have you tried a wheel lock? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_lock#Wheel_lock http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_lock#Wheel_lock Someone walking around London carrying a bike rather than riding it would look pretty suspicious -- wouldn't police stop someone like that and check the registration sticker?
  - lmm 12y ago
    The first time I just locked the wheel. Every time since I've used more advanced locks. It was never unlocked. The last time one was stolen the thieves left the back wheel (locked to a stand) behind, unscrewed it and cut through the cable that was holding the frame. AIUI bike theft is mostly organized, they take a whole load and throw them in the back of a van, rather than carrying them around.

michaelt 12y ago

Well, with modern car immobilisers you can't bypass them or break them, because they're built right into the ECU that runs the spark plugs and whatnot. There's not really an equivalent for that in bicycles - a vital electronic component that, if removed, makes the bike unusable. Sure, you can get a bike tracker on ebay, but if trackers were making a significant dent in bicycle theft, thieves would just look for them and remove or disable them. For trackers to get a signal the antennas have to be exposed, making it a simple enough matter to put a nail through the patch antenna.

svantana 12y ago
Well surely the entire bicycle frame could be used as an antenna? Then the electronics could fit deep inside the frame, which would make it quite difficult to disable. A problem would be how to power the device though.
- infinite8s 12y ago
  Maybe the tracker could be powered by usage of the bike.
  - gambiting 12y ago
    You want the wheels on a bike to spin as freely as possible, any added resistance is unwelcome because it makes cycling harder - and you would need to add resistance to generate electricity. Personally I even hate the dynamos that power the lights, because their effect can definitely be felt when you ride.
    - annnnd 12y ago
      I wonder if vibration would suffice? Depends on the state of the roads I guess. ;)
    - jarek 12y ago
      Modern electronics don't really need that much, and/or the dynamos have improved. I had a bike with 90s-style dynamo and it was indeed a slight pain. Today I ride Bixi/Alta bikeshare bicycles - they have something to power the lights, but any impedance it creates is too small to notice.

annnnd 12y ago

Not just bicycles, other sports equipment could be protected by such anti-theft devices (maybe even at the discretion of the owner). Are there any such tracking bugs already on the market?

leke 12y ago

How about RFID chips built inside the frame. Then your town would make hidden readers, placed around the city (close to cameras), that could alert authorities of a reported stolen bicycle being ridden. Make the thieves pay a hefty fine to recouporate some of the expense of the system.

joosters 12y ago
So you would like the government to track the location and movement of all bicycles, each one tagged with the owner's ID? Can't imagine anyone would object to that smart idea :)
- leke 12y ago
  Google, Apple, MS et al all track us by our phones and I think you know by now that the NSA, and police can also access that data. I wouldn't really object if the government knew when I cycled into town, and when I visited friends etc... if it would get my stolen bike back. There could also be a rule that only bikes reported stolen could be logged and alerted, but there could also be benefits if this rule was let slide. For example, popular cycling routes could be studied for prioritising path repairs, or the building of new cycle lanes.
gambiting 12y ago
The problem is that especially inside the EU, bikes are stolen almost in bulk, then loaded into trucks and taken outside the country - even if you get stopped at the border(which is super rare, thanks to the Schoengen zone), it's impossible to check the serial numbers of the bikes - if there are any databases, they are usually not ran by the police, and there are absolutely zero international databases for bikes. Eastern parts of EU are full of German, French, English bikes - where do you think they come from? I bet 90% of them were stolen, and the chance of recovering such bike is zero.
- jkbyc 12y ago
  I can assure you that people in eastern Europe, the Czech republic at least, also do complain about having their nice new bikes stolen. Just to put things into perspective, eastern EU is not some wild west.

jzwinck 12y ago

If you want to reduce bicycle theft in the US, the solution is simple: drastically increase the penalties for perpetrators. Get caught stealing a bike? One year in jail. Adjust until the level of theft is where you want it to be. Stealing a bike is not just taking $300 or whatever from the owner. It's robbing that cyclist and would-be cyclists of the confidence to use their preferred mode of transportation, and deteriorating their health in the long term. This is a lot more damaging than non-cyclists often intuit, and insurance cannot cover it. The penalty for stealing bicycles should be closer to the penalty for stealing a car and intentionally injuring someone. Currently it's close to zero.

thelettere 12y ago
They've done studies on the effect of increasing penalties on crime, and it's virtually nil.
- CalRobert 12y ago
  Who are "they"?
  - thelettere 12y ago
    Researchers. There have been innumerable studies on the subject - but really it's common sense. If you're a criminal you're unlikely to be particularly adept at the art of deliberation - otherwise you would choose a different way of life. But for evidence here's a somewhat recent review: http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/1147698?uid=3739920&uid=2&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21104508241367 http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/1147698?uid=3739920&ui... Also, interestingly, deterrence is not the primary reason most people push for harsher penalties. Rather it is punishment for its own sake: http://www.law.asu.edu/files/!NoTemplate/why%20do%20we%20punish%20-%20Robinson.pdf http://www.law.asu.edu/files/!NoTemplate/why%20do%20we%20pun...
- MrBuddyCasino 12y ago
  In islamic countries with sharia law, nobody steals, since you risk loosing a hand. Not that I recommend that approach, but I'd be careful with such statements.

ck2 12y ago

Do you find police interested at all in helping recover a stolen bike? Unless you hand them GPS corordinates and a photo of the person taking it, they aren't going to do anything.

SeanDav 12y ago

Sometimes there is a huge financial incentive to avoid making something unprofitably to steal. For example it has long been technically possible to render stolen phones unusable but this has never been done because there is very little financial incentive to do so, in fact there is financial incentive not to do so because it would effect negatively effect sales of new phones if no phone got stolen. It would not surprise me at all if something similar was at play here with bicycles. If every bicycle had to be micro-doted (or chipped etc) and registered and bicycles were subject to spot checks, bicycle theft would fall hugely, but where is the incentive?

uptown 12y ago

Seems like some physical attributes of bicycles make them difficult to apply similar protections. I'd like to see a lock that has an acoustic alarm (similar to those panic keychains that emit a very loud high-pitched sound when activated) combined with a dye-pack component that emits a plume of bank-grade dye when compromised. Add those to a best-in-class lock design and I think you'd have a decent deterrent.