Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

What Happens to Stolen Bicycles?

blog.priceonomics.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

251–260 of 356 posts

Re: What Happens to Stolen Bicycles?

#251

Post by enraged_camel »

jlgreco wrote: post #231
pmahoney wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe that it's illegal to booby-trap one's house, and I've heard of (apocryphal?) cases of burglars suing homeowners for injuries sustained during a burglary... I imagine such a brake-less bike would fall in that category.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katko_v._Briney This is the only case I could find on wikipedia. Placing a bicycle outside with no brakes hooked up is a far cry from rigging a spring loaded shotgun to the door of an unoccupied building. It isn't even unheard of for people to legitimately (well, not legally I think...) ride bicycles without brakes, so where would you draw the line? If the police used a Ford Pinto as a ba…

>>Placing a bicycle outside with no brakes hooked up is a far cry from rigging a spring loaded shotgun to the door of an unoccupied building.

Until the lack of brakes causes you to get hit by a car, or crash into a pedestrian and cause severe injury.

Re: What Happens to Stolen Bicycles?

#252

Post by jiggy2011 »

bigiain wrote: post #234
ericd wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, given the amount I will use that computer over the 2 years I have it and the disruption to flow that processing pauses cause, a ~10% increase in performance might be worth the premium. I imagine there's similar logic for bikes. But you're right, sometimes people just want to show off.

Wild handwavey ballpark estimate follows. Your 2 year timeframe for a computer - lets call that 500 days (assuming its for work, and rounding to 2significant digits). That's $1 per day "extra" for the slightly faster processor. Which is what, well under two minutes of most people reading here's hourly rate. If you use that computer for anything more processor bound than word processing, that apparently tiny speed bum…

If you put it that way, I wonder how much it is worth a day to not read HN..

Re: What Happens to Stolen Bicycles?

#253

Post by lkbm »

> He had to learn a life lesson a little earlier than I had liked - that there are some people in the world who are just plain mean.

We live in a complex world full of complex people with countless motivations. It's always tempting to dismiss someone as "just plain mean", but it's rarely accurate.

I realize this is somewhat off-topic. Just stood out to me.

Re: What Happens to Stolen Bicycles?

#254

Post by Mc_Big_G »

A woman at work had her bike stolen in SF (off the front of a bus if you can believe that) and decided to go to every flea-market she could find in Oakland that weekend. When she found the bike she just took it and dared the guy selling it to do something about it. She just rode away. :)

Re: What Happens to Stolen Bicycles?

#255

Post by dmm »

bigiain wrote: post #227
dmm wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US also has a lot of crime. More people need to be in prison.

Surely that's an over simplistic view? The real answer to your first sentence is clearly "people need to commit less crime". I would suggest there's a lot of evidence showing that the threat of prison isn't deterring crime at least amongst some demographics. Do you really think greater risk of prison is going to stop bike theft by crackheads? Or homeless? Or the poor? It's quite possible that fixing some of the socia…

> It's quite possible that fixing some of the social problems would be a way more powerful motivator to stop bike theft

I want to live in a society free of crime. Where children and other vulnerable people move free from violence and theft.

Is that unreasonable?

Re: What Happens to Stolen Bicycles?

#256

Post by dmm »

spacemanaki wrote: post #188
dmm wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US also has a lot of crime. More people need to be in prison.

Care to back that up? Does the US really have that much more crime that justifies locking up more people? Recent stuff I've read on this agrees with Cass ( http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2012/01/30/120... ).

I don't give a damn about statistics. I want to be able to live anywhere in the US safely.

Would you allow your 6yo to walk alone at night through any city in the US?

I think you should be able to. I think a person should be able to live anywhere in the US without encountering violence on a daily basis, without hearing gunshots every night.

Because that isn't true, I think there is too much crime.

Re: What Happens to Stolen Bicycles?

#257

Post by jlgreco »

enraged_camel wrote: post #251
jlgreco wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katko_v._Briney This is the only case I could find on wikipedia. Placing a bicycle outside with no brakes hooked up is a far cry from rigging a spring loaded shotgun to the door of an unoccupied building. It isn't even unheard of for people to legitimately (well, not legally I think...) ride bicycles without brakes, so where would you draw the line? If the police used a Ford Pinto as a ba…

>>Placing a bicycle outside with no brakes hooked up is a far cry from rigging a spring loaded shotgun to the door of an unoccupied building. Until the lack of brakes causes you to get hit by a car, or crash into a pedestrian and cause severe injury.

Obviously the only way to know for sure is for it to happen, but my money is on there being no way in hell there would be a conviction.

A concealed spring-loaded shotgun hidden behind a door is, without any doubt whatsoever, intended to maim an unsuspecting person. A bicycle placed outside without breaks though? There are far too many plausible less than evil explanations for that to say with any certainty that a jury would side with the plaintiff. (Unless the shop did something particularly stupid like admit they put it there in that condition with intent to harm...)

Now, could the guy still sue? Yeah, of course. He could also sue if a perfectly normal bike that he stole gave him blisters. That would be pretty dumb, and he wouldn't win, but he could still do it. The only thing that really matters at the end of the day is "can you get away with it".

If there are better cases than the shotgun out there (and I imagine there should be if it is really so easy to sue for things like that), then I will of course re-evaluate my position.

Re: What Happens to Stolen Bicycles?

#259

Post by nl »

Jun8 wrote: post #55

I 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?

As many other answers say, yes, there is a difference.

Here are some details (for 'racing' road bikes, which I know best):

For around $400, if you buy well online you can get something with an aluminium frame, carbon fibre fork and moderately decent components (eg [1]). It'll probably weigh a bit under 30 pounds (13 kg).

For around $700 you'll get a bike with similar specs from a major manufacturer and you can get it from a bike shop, where they will assemble it for you, make sure you get the right size etc. See [2][3]

For around $1000 you can get a carbon fibre frame on your bike (online, with terrible components[4]) or bikes from major manufactures where the components start getting better (eg Shimano Sora 9 speed). These bikes should be between 20 and 25 pounds. See [5]

At $1500 you get bikes from major manufactures that are suitable for racing (ie, Shimano 105 10 speed, eg [6]), or can get pretty good carbon fiber bikes online. You also start getting decent bikes from high end manufactures (Bianchi, Pinarello, BMC). Most of these bikes will weigh a bit more than 20 pounds (9 kg), but if you choose carefully you might get under that.

Over $2000 you get carbon frames and Shimano's second to top component set, better wheels, and began getting under 20 pounds more often. High end only manufactures (Cervello, Ridley etc) are making their base level bikes.

Around $5000 you start getting electronic shifting, or better aero frames, deep rims on your wheels. You can start considering custom made frames. Your bike should weigh well under 20 pounds, and you can probably get down to the UCI limit of 6kg.

At $10,000 you are getting bike similar to what they ride in the Tour de France. You can get a power meter built into your crankset or wheels. The carbon frameset has been wind tunnel tested and is engineered so carefully that some parts of your frame only have a single layer of carbon, yet you still can't flex the frame at the bottom bracket. You probably have to add things like the power meter as ballast to make sure you are over the UCU weight limit. You can consider custom titanium[7] or trying to buy onto the speedvagen waiting list[8].

Over $10,000: McLaren + Specalized: http://www.bikerumor.com/2011/03/17/specialized-mclaren-veng... (actually, to be fair there are plenty of ways to spend $10K+ on a road bike. This is just one).

[1] http://www.bikesdirect.com/products/windsor/wellington3_IX.h...

[2] http://www.giant-bicycles.com/en-us/bikes/model/defy.5/9014/...

[3] http://www.trekbikes.com/us/en/bikes/road/sport/1_series/

[4] http://www.bikesdirect.com/products/fuji/fuji_sl3.htm

[5] http://www.specialized.com/us/en/bikes/road/allez/allezsport...

[6] http://www.trekbikes.com/us/en/bikes/road/sport/madone_2_ser...

[7] http://www.baumcycles.com/bikes/romano

[8] http://www.adecadentexistence.com/?p=469

Re: What Happens to Stolen Bicycles?

#260

Post by learc83 »

roguecoder wrote: post #217
Cass wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US already proportionally has the most prisoners out of any country in the world, and I'm wary of any solution that includes making that problem worse. That kind of thing has giant socioeconomic costs and, looking at the crime rates, doesn't seem to work at making the country safer. I just don't think that finding yet another reason to put a whole bunch of people in prison (average cost per month between $2000 an…

Actually, it has made the country significantly safer: http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/glance/cv2.cfm Whether or not the decline in violent crime justifies the rise in imprisonment and the decline in prison standards, or whether there might be other ways to achieve the same declines are different questions. But the United States has become significantly safer over the last ten, twenty and fifty years.

That statement is incredibly misleading.

Criminologists aren't anywhere close to a consensus on the causes of the crime rate reduction of the last few decades. Many theories have been offered, from decreased crack use, to fewer unwanted children resulting from legalized abortions, to your suggestion of harsher sentencing.

Yes, Harsher sentencing may have something to do with it, but it could just as well have increased our crime rate and been counteracted by one of the other factors.

There is no scientific consensus to support your claim.

Post reply on HN