Here in the Netherlands (with an average of 2 bikes per inhabitant) there is another big class of bicycle thieves: those whose bike just got stolen, and don't want to buy a new one (yet again)...
What Happens to Stolen Bicycles?
141–150 of 356 posts
Re: What Happens to Stolen Bicycles?
#142Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the problem is not catching the bike thieves, more that the punishment given for stealing bikes is minimal, so it's not worth the police doing much about it.
But you could make possession of stolen property (the bike) a major crime with prison and financial punishment and you weaken the demand side of things. Then using RFID or similar technology, you could embed a RFID tag somewhere in the frame. Then allow someone to report a stolen bike with a police report, very similar to a stolen vehicle report and then using remote scanners you could scan for stolen bikes very easi…
Can you make an RFID tag that you can embed in the bike such that it's easy to scan at a small distance, but also hard for the thieves to fry it or remove it? Because in order to be successful it would be to be standardized and if standardized the thieves would fry it if easy.
Re: What Happens to Stolen Bicycles?
#143Earlier quoted context omitted.
This same concept was debated within the realm of drug trade - which obviously is at a different risk level. With special compartment style locks on a chain, the same concept is possible - without a dealer having to ever interact directly with the buyer. Same concept can also exist for hiding information (whistle blowers hiding a SD card with data, a key, who knows what). I don't know about SF, but it is not uncommon…
considered drugs in this case, but couldn't figure out how that would work; how would you prevent theft (from your would-be customer)? there’s no conceivable way i can think of to present a drug for someone to ‘check-out’ without enabling that person to steal it..
I've been reading a lot of books on the subject lately and I think that's exactly how a lot street-level dealers (the lowest ranked members of the empire) are operating. The dealer would hide their product somewhere close by, for example in an empty soda can in a garbage bin or in a crack in the pavement. Once a client has made a purchase the dealer would tell the client where his stuff is hidden and the client can then go and take it.
If a dealer was busted he would never have any product on him, and the risk is relatively low if you consider that these people usually deal in units worth probably less than 20$ each. So if a package gets stolen or lost it's no big deal really.
Re: What Happens to Stolen Bicycles?
#144This is an area where a disruptive technology is due. Imagine if even 10% of bikes had technology that wirelessly sends out GPS coordinates or can identify the owner via an embedded RFID tag. Suddenly stealing bikes is not nearly as risk free and the incentive to participate is greatly reduced.
Yes! Or a bar code/serial number encrusted in bikes' structure would do. Only this requires efforts from bike brands, owner, or shops to obtain a sustainable back-end tracking infrastructure.
Re: What Happens to Stolen Bicycles?
#145I dont know if its common in the anywhere else but in my town here in germany the stealing of bike-PARTS has become very popular. I guess the owners of high-value bikes use better locks, that are actually hard to break ( like those: http://ebay.muskelkater-sport.de/fahrrad/schloesser/bordo-gr... ). But for Parts the risk is even lower and a good break or light system can yield a few bucks. I personally use a cheap (…
Yup, very popular here in SF. I recently just got my wheels stolen. Also had a few seats stolen as well. Stealing parts is probably more common than stealing entire bikes. And if you look at the pictures of the stolen bikes linked in the article, most of them are missing a front wheel, which to me, implies that the thieves were targeting bikes that were only locked by their front wheel (or they were selling the front…
Yup; recently had my REAR wheel stolen (a large pain to replace tire, tube, wheel, AND cassette). Now I lock both of them.
Re: What Happens to Stolen Bicycles?
#146Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the problem is not catching the bike thieves, more that the punishment given for stealing bikes is minimal, so it's not worth the police doing much about it.
But you could make possession of stolen property (the bike) a major crime with prison and financial punishment and you weaken the demand side of things. Then using RFID or similar technology, you could embed a RFID tag somewhere in the frame. Then allow someone to report a stolen bike with a police report, very similar to a stolen vehicle report and then using remote scanners you could scan for stolen bikes very easi…
But you could make possession of stolen property (the bike) a major crime with prison and financial punishment and you weaken the demand side of things.
In legal terms, you'd have a problem with proportionality—that is, the idea that the punishment needs to fit the crime. This is partially a problem with fairness and partially a problem with incentives: if you give someone the same punishment for, say, stealing a bike and for beating someone up, then if you want to steal someone's bike you might as well beat them up to steal the bike.
If you follow this logic, you eventually get to something like 18th C England, where a LOT of stuff was punishable by death, which led to large problems with murder: if you're going to be killed for stealing, you might as well kill someone, then steal, since you've just eliminated the witness.
Re: What Happens to Stolen Bicycles?
#147I love priceonomics, every time I read one of their articles I learn something new (for example I didn't realize you could exchange a stolen bike for sex). Approaching this as an economics problem seems like a good approach. I think if bike manufacturers built in ways to uniquely identify bikes, and those idents were economically infeasible to remove, then you could do a bitcoin style distributed database of the curr…
Most (all?) bikes have a serial number stamped on the bottom of the 'bottom bracket' the part that the pedals go into. These serial numbers are unique per bike brand, but not universally unique. The serial is pretty hard to remove, without it's removal being obvious to anyone that looks, though the brand can be removed or changed - if that happens the serial wouldn't show as stolen. If there was a lookup for serials…
My fiance's bike was stolen a few months ago. By coincidence someone who was a friend of a friend of her's ended up buying it off of craigslist. We discovered this when he arrived at a BBQ riding her bike. When we asked about the details of his purchase, he sent us all the email correspondance with the bike thief.
The thief had actually given him the serial number of the bike, which he checked in the online police database and it returned no hits. The catch was that the thief slightly altered the serial number so that it wouldn't yield any hits. When he went to actually look at the bike he didn't notice the subtle difference in the serial number and assumed it to be legit.
Re: What Happens to Stolen Bicycles?
#148I think a useful tactic to curb loss of expensive bikes would be to legally target the people who buy them, these are the people that cause the market to exist and perpetuate the situation. My guess is that most of these people are not crooks, i.e. they are just young people who want to but can't afford a nice bike and they know exactly what they are buying. I don't understand anything about bikes so can't give an ex…
>Tangentially, and pardon my ignorance, I'm not a biker: I can't
>understand people who shell out thousands of dollars for a bike,
>are these so much better than a $500 one?
They are better. They aren't 5x better (as if this was even quantifiable)... but if you are passionate about biking and you spend a lot of time on your bike, it can seem worth it.
I spend much more time on my bike than in my car... and I appreciate the improved ride of associated with an extra $1000 on a bike more than I'd appreciate the improvements from spending an extra $5000 on a car. So, it certainly seems reasonable to me.
Re: What Happens to Stolen Bicycles?
#149I think a useful tactic to curb loss of expensive bikes would be to legally target the people who buy them, these are the people that cause the market to exist and perpetuate the situation. My guess is that most of these people are not crooks, i.e. they are just young people who want to but can't afford a nice bike and they know exactly what they are buying. I don't understand anything about bikes so can't give an ex…
How can you tell if a bike you are buying is stolen? It would be pretty easy for a bike thief to post an ad on Craigslist saying they are selling their used bike. >>Tangentially, and pardon my ignorance, I'm not a biker: I can't understand people who shell out thousands of dollars for a bike, are these so much better than a $500 one? It makes a huge difference. More expensive bikes are built from lighter and stronger…
> More expensive bikes are built from lighter and stronger materials (such as carbon fiber)
I would recommend anyone thinking carbon fiber makes stronger bikes to visit a topical image blog at http://www.bustedcarbon.com/ :)
The weight issue is addressed elsewhere in comments...
Re: What Happens to Stolen Bicycles?
#150Earlier quoted context omitted.
Actually, purchasing stolen goods is illegal in most places, full stop. The reason is that it's practically impossible to prove beyond a reasonable doubt what somebody did or didn't know, and when. The BikeID idea is about as old as bike theft, but it's pretty difficult to enforce. If you care enough about not buying a stolen bike, the solution is simple: Ask for the original invoice. If not, you're not going to both…
> Actually, purchasing stolen goods is illegal in most places, full stop. In my state, the statute says "such person knowing or having reasonable grounds to believe the same to have been feloniously stolen or taken". I doubt any state makes receiving stolen goods in complete ignorance a crime. However, the stolen goods are generally recoverable by the original owner, whether or not the person receiving them purchased…
>However, the stolen goods are generally recoverable by the original owner, whether or not the person receiving them purchased them in good faith.
This is good. Usually there is just a demand for bikes. With this system there will be a demand for non-stolen bikes. The prices for stolen bikes go down and so does stealing them.