Has anyone ever considered engineering a disable feature into bikes? What if there was, for example, a lock for the crank that would require too much work to defeat/break. The thief wouldn't steal the bike because his costs/time/difficulty would go up. Car stereo manufacturer's had this same issue a couple of decades ago. One brilliant solution was a removable faceplate for the the stereo. The owner just pulled that out (about the size of an iPhone 5) and took it with him/her when leaving the car. Another solution was to put a matching chip in the speakers...if the stereo was stolen and connected to an unmatched set of speakers, it wouldn't work. Let's get creative and end bike theft!
A Dragnet for Pee-Wee
51–60 of 60 posts
Re: A Dragnet for Pee-Wee
#52I've always thought that bicycles should have a standard ID number similar to how vehicles have a VIN (a BIN maybe?). This would go a long way in allowing victims to search for their bike in a registry, and also allow buyers to confirm the bike they're buying from some flea market wasn't nabbed the week prior somewhere. To me this would be the first step no-brainer to helping discourage this kind of theft.
They do have a frame number engraved underneath the bottom bracket.
Re: A Dragnet for Pee-Wee
#53A similar service for London http://bikeshd.co.uk
Re: A Dragnet for Pee-Wee
#54One of the great frustrations of bike theft is that we know almost nothing about it. Auto insurers have an obvious incentive to research auto theft, which has led to numerous innovations in theft prevention. Things like locking wheel nuts, radio coding and immobilisers have hugely reduced automotive theft. With no such interested body in cycling, any efforts to reduce cycle theft are just guesswork.
We have absolutely no idea whether chains are better than D-locks. We don't know which kinds of bicycle are most likely to be stolen. We don't know what the most common methods of lock removal are. We don't know if any of the tracking products actually provide a deterrent or facilitate recovery. It's practically impossible to give good advice beyond the most basic aspects of using a good quality lock and parking in a busy area.
If anyone can think of a good approach to gathering this data then please let me know - I believe it's the biggest single solvable problem in cycling development.
Re: A Dragnet for Pee-Wee
#55It seems like a good way to legitimize a bike market place is to require listings to prominently feature bike serial numbers to search for their bike, thus reducing the revenue potential for flipping stolen bikes (and playing into the market theory in the linked article).
Re: A Dragnet for Pee-Wee
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
Have you ever tried putting a GPS in your bike? http://www.gizmag.com/spybike-gps-tracker/22999/
Or just buying a cheaper bike on the assumption that you'll need to get a new one sooner or later?
Cheaper bike is not the solution. I rode on a bike worth 50 pounds for two years. Replaced the rear tyre after a puncture with a 15 quid replacement and it was stolen the very next day. From outside the British transport police station at Victoria
Re: A Dragnet for Pee-Wee
#57A rabbi visiting my house had an easier solution:
Every time he left his bike, he removed the seat and carried it with him. Annoying to steal a bike without a seat! Cost goes up!
Re: A Dragnet for Pee-Wee
#58Has anyone ever considered engineering a disable feature into bikes? What if there was, for example, a lock for the crank that would require too much work to defeat/break. The thief wouldn't steal the bike because his costs/time/difficulty would go up. Car stereo manufacturer's had this same issue a couple of decades ago. One brilliant solution was a removable faceplate for the the stereo. The owner just pulled that…
It's been done a few times. Biomega and Puma made a bike with a structural wire that could be used to lock the bike; cutting the wire made the bike unrideable. There's the n'lock, which lets you turn MTB style handlebars sideways for hallway storage, but also acts as a theft deterrent, since you can't ride the bike with floppy bars. Removable pedals (Wellgo QRD, MKS EZY, etc). And dozens more.
There's a problem with designs like this. Bikes are very portable; thieves can walk with them, shoulder them, stick them in a van. The designs do not discourage the thief from cutting your U-lock in the first place - they only discover the bike is unrideable as they try to leave, and your bike still has value in parts.
Re: A Dragnet for Pee-Wee
#59One of the great frustrations of bike theft is that we know almost nothing about it. Auto insurers have an obvious incentive to research auto theft, which has led to numerous innovations in theft prevention. Things like locking wheel nuts, radio coding and immobilisers have hugely reduced automotive theft. With no such interested body in cycling, any efforts to reduce cycle theft are just guesswork. We have absolutel…
With a little time and a little money it wouldn't be hard to get answers straight from bike thieves themselves. Give me a day and £200 and I don't think I'd have a problem getting taken along watching bikes being stolen while being talked through it all.
Re: A Dragnet for Pee-Wee
#60A rabbi visiting my house had an easier solution: Every time he left his bike, he removed the seat and carried it with him. Annoying to steal a bike without a seat! Cost goes up!
Annoying if youre an amateur about to ride off on it, not particularly annoying if you have a van to load it into.