81–90 of 151 posts
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You're a good person, and you also shared an effective way of retrieving stolen property that I'd never thought about before.
He's a good person. Me and a million others would have pressed charges. Are we bad people?
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Which is why the "Batman solution" as described in the article may actually be the best way of dealing with this problem. Individual citizens who care about the problem can investigate the issue, and once they've gotten the meetup setup, the police can be called in to complete the arrest. This way, the community are the ones initiating police action, rather than the police themselves (which, as you point out, bad inc…
Exactly - and tracking down stolen bikes online is time consuming and thus expensive work that is better done by volonteers than by police. That money can be spent on other activities. The problem is that it is probably rare that police is even willing to spend 30 minutes on traveling to a known location for a stolen bike. Seattle (maybe the US in general I don't know) seems like a good place in this regard if he isn…
He steals a $1k bike every other day = $182k/yr
So even if a cop only tracked down 1 thief per month, he's paying his own salary back many times.
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And yet... A friend was walking in soma watching a video on his iphone. He noticed someone peering over his shoulder; the dude grabbed the iphone and took off. My friend chased him, and this is where it gets interesting. The thief, instead of outrunning my friend and/or just dropping the phone, punched my friend. My friend plus a bystander who saw the punch ended up chasing the thief down. SF police don't give a fuck…
This isn't a good thing - even if the thief serves half that there is no scenario where that outcome is a net benefit to society. However this view of mine may be venturing too far into politics.
But I would love to hear from you what we should do of the people who commit assault?
What is a woman was punched? or a minority (because they were a minority)?
Do you honestly believe that prison for assault does not deter would be assaulters?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're a good person, and you also shared an effective way of retrieving stolen property that I'd never thought about before.
He's a good person. Me and a million others would have pressed charges. Are we bad people?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're a good person, and you also shared an effective way of retrieving stolen property that I'd never thought about before.
He's a good person. Me and a million others would have pressed charges. Are we bad people?
Morality is situation specific, OP was there, perhaps if you were there you would have done the same.
There may have been other people whom most anyone would press charges apon.
Revenge is a dry & tasteless dish against some. Some deserve justice, some need only pity and help. Rehabilitation is logically better than punishment. One case is unlikely to alter overall deterrance. Thus each case should be judged on its merits.
Perhaps the guy's obvious disturbance was a ploy to fool the OP, luckily the cops could assit in this judgement with assesment.
This is the failure of Zero tolerance, when it produces obvious injustice. Equally this is the greatness of a judiciary who weight not only guilt but intent and circumstance.
The only bad or anti-social thing, is abrogating personal responsibility. Such as avoiding Jury Duty. Asimov's 1st law shows both an action or inaction that cause harm are equivalent.
In Norway we have a central register where you can add your bike. Each bike has a serial number engraved in the frame which is used for registering it. In an ideal world, everyone would check the bike they are buying in this register and see if it is reported stolen or not. Of course, this doesn't happen, but the opportunity of it I think helps deterring people somewhat for stealing a bike to resell it. And last year…
Many local police forces (towns, cities, universities, etc.) in the US have this type of register using the serial number but I doubt that it is centrally accessible. Instead, they usually provide a sticker with the police department name/logo that one applies on the frame to identify where it's from. This is certainly not an ideal solution; I would much rather have something like vehicle licensing but free, managed…
BikeIndex.org, though - which is mentioned in the article because that's what the batman is referencing - is totally open and has over 220+ national partners and over 70k bikes on file.
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Exploding bike seats? http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYlBT1d_GWo Seriously though, GPS receivers and GSM radios are a few dollars each these days. Seems like an easy thing to hide in the frame (of course a thief could still part out everything except the frame)
Finding your bike is not helpful if the police is not interested. And they usually aren't where I live. Except if you're yourself willing to enforce your retrieval with violence... at which point the police will be interested if everything does not go easily.
There's a two well known flea markets where bike thieves sell their stolen property. Even if you are at the flea market, with you bike's serial number in hand, the cops do not come out.
A huge guy, who had his bike stolen once too many times advertises in CL. He will literally show up at the flea market, and take your bike back, after you show him the serial number. (Guys like this do not get enough props. He does it because it's just the right thing to do.)
I have never used his services, but have had bikes stolen. I've literally given up. My bikes are now pretty much throwaway. If they are stolen, it's no big deal. I want to buy a motorcyle this summer, but theft is first feature on my mind.
Would I prosecute a bike thief? If I felt they were professionals--yes. If, I thought it was a yuppie, who gets a rush out of stealing--yes. If it was a homeless person--no.
I saw a great deterrent to bike theft at Target. Outside the store they had these little pods you put your bike in. You supply the lock. They take up too much room for most businesses though, but they look like you could stack them two units high?
I wonder if there is more that bicycle manufacturers/dealers can do to prevent theft or help recover stolen bikes - not because they're obligated but just to improve sales. Especially as the price approaches four digits, "what if this gets stolen?" has to be near the top of most potential buyers' list of concerns and probably chills sales to some degree.
> Especially as the price approaches four digits, "what if this gets stolen?" has to be near the top of most potential buyers' list of concerns and probably chills sales to some degree. If you're spending that much on a bike then you're cycling regularly (communter and/or every weekend type). You're not going to ride a shitty bike if you're riding that often. Bikes aren't like cars -- a Corolla will get you from poin…
Yes and no. If you ride that much, you won't be riding a shitty bike. However, it is NOT the case that if you ride that much, riding a "non-shitty" bike means you ride an expensive bike. Bike manufacturers would love for you to think that you need to pay a lot to get a decent bike, but it isn't true. You can easily spend $50 to $300, trick out the components for another $50 to $200, and have a _fantastic_ ride that can beat the pants off of most bikes out in the wild, including bikes that cost thousands. And, the more you ride and the longer you've been riding, the more likely doing this comes easily.