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Seattle vigilante reuniting stolen bikes with their owners

theguardian.com

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Re: Seattle vigilante reuniting stolen bikes with their owners

#111

Post by fiatmoney »

scurvy wrote: post #101
fiatmoney wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's their job to do what they're told. If the city government decided Bike Crime was a top priority, cops got promotions based on how many bikes they recaptured, etc. then presumably they would be more active. Conversely, when the government decides it doesn't want a law enforced it's very easy to make that clear. Laws are an excuse to be able to target kinds of activity the government wants to target at the time; i…

So what exactly is the priority of San Francisco, it's DA, and police department? I ask because I haven't been able to figure that out in 20 years of living here. From what I can tell, the police are good people, but the DA's are generally useless and are only interested in pushing an alternative social agenda as opposed to enforcing the laws passed by previous generations.

"...the DA's are generally useless and are only interested in pushing an alternative social agenda as opposed to enforcing the laws..."

I mean, it sure fits the evidence. No one has an interest in "enforcing laws", they're tools to exert the power they wish to exert. In SF, I guess that's balancing property values that give you the cash to run further political campaigns with the social agenda shit that they think gets votes.

Police don't really have independent priorities beyond "paychecks & cool shit with minimal accountability" (in fairness, basically the same priorities as any other job, especially government jobs). They are mostly the penultimate shelf on which shit, rolling downhill, rests (the public gets to be the final one).

Re: Seattle vigilante reuniting stolen bikes with their owners

#112

Post by justinator »

dpark wrote: post #20
tlrobinson wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

The problem is then you need to remember to keep your bike's GPS tracker charged. Your bike isn't carrying a large capacity 12V battery the way your car is.

Here you go,

http://www.findmespot.com/en/index.php?cid=128

Re: Seattle vigilante reuniting stolen bikes with their owners

#113

Post by justinator »

mc808 wrote: post #6

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.

Renter's insurance usually covers stolen bicycles.

Re: Seattle vigilante reuniting stolen bikes with their owners

#114

Post by lostlogin »

home_boi wrote: post #107
lostlogin wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does 4 years in prison create? Is he going to be fixed when he comes out and never do anything bad again?

Stops him from committing more crimes, at least for 4 years

Does it? And after that?

Re: Seattle vigilante reuniting stolen bikes with their owners

#115

Post by chrischen »

qq66 wrote: post #66
chrischen wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They could implement a system like iPhones (all iPhones register with Apple servers and lock up if reported stolen). Mandatory serial numbers, and make it illegal to purchase or own a bike without a serial number, or to buy a stolen serial number.

Illegal to own a bike without a serial number? That sounds like overkill.

Sounds like cars.

Re: Seattle vigilante reuniting stolen bikes with their owners

#116

Post by rorykoehler »

tlrobinson wrote: post #27
dpark wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is then you need to remember to keep your bike's GPS tracker charged. Your bike isn't carrying a large capacity 12V battery the way your car is.

For this purpose you could just have the cellular module wake up every x minutes to check to see if it should begin tracking. Or use BLE and an accelerometer. If your phone isn't in range and the bike is moving then starting tracking. I haven't done the math but you could probably get away with recharging every 6 months or so.

I thought about turning this into a hardware startup. GPS stickers for anything like bikes, guitars etc. Energy consumption was the big issue. Didn't pursue it further because of that.

Re: Seattle vigilante reuniting stolen bikes with their owners

#117

Post by rorykoehler »

dpark wrote: post #20
tlrobinson wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

The problem is then you need to remember to keep your bike's GPS tracker charged. Your bike isn't carrying a large capacity 12V battery the way your car is.

You could hook it up with a dyno that attaches to the bottom bracket with the gps sitting in the down tube. Cycling would charge it. Also checkout lock8.me . They made a smart lock instead which makes a lot of sense.

Re: Seattle vigilante reuniting stolen bikes with their owners

#118

Post by danieltiIlett »

na85 wrote: post #28
maaaats wrote: post #16

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…

What's stopping people from filing the serial numbers off?

It's inferior compared to welding a new bead over the serial, grinding it flat and engraving a new serial?

Re: Seattle vigilante reuniting stolen bikes with their owners

#119

Post by chris_wot »

woah wrote: post #53
chris_wot wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flagrantly flouting the law and thumbing their nose at the police eventually causes the police to come into disrepute if they consistently show they don't care about theft. The police force can only really enforce the law because society gives them permission to do so. The instant that you have mobs of Bike Batmans the police will act because now you have increased vigilantism - and people taking the law into their o…

If bike batman shot someone, he would be guilty of murder.

What if it was on self defence?

The point is that the police should be handling this!

Re: Seattle vigilante reuniting stolen bikes with their owners

#120

Post by cpeterso »

marincounty wrote: post #89
ptaipale wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I bet you live in the Bay Area? Specifically, the east bay? Near Berkeley? 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…

Karin Cycle in Berkeley is a known fence for stolen bikes. The Yelp reviews are depressing, but clearly busting Karim Cycle is not economical for the Berkeley Police Department.

http://yelp.com/biz/karim-cycle-berkeley-3

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