41–50 of 151 posts
Why do people always want to know the person's identity? This is so selfish. I feel they either want to know it because they want to be the first to know or they just hate not knowing. Shallow and selfish. Yuck.
This is an awesome thing for him to be doing, but I don't understand why he needed to step up and do it. The thieves post in a public place basically admitting that they stole the item and are more than willing to meet up... Why did it take a third party to start doing it?
This is an awesome thing for him to be doing, but I don't understand why he needed to step up and do it. The thieves post in a public place basically admitting that they stole the item and are more than willing to meet up... Why did it take a third party to start doing it?
Because the police simply do not care about bike thefts so the criminals know they can get away with it.
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 own hands.
This sort of thing can escalate very quickly. If bike batman works well, then why not murderer batman, or rapist batman? And then there is the escalation of enforcement. What if bike batman decided to really get serious and use a gun to get the bike back?
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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)
I've thought a lot about this. The problem with hiding the tracker in the frame is the GPS and GSM antenna will be blocked by the metal tube. There would have to be a way to get the antenna out (maybe a special bottle cage, with the antenna leads going through the lugs?). It would work for carbon fiber, though, and those are the most expensive bikes.
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What's stopping people from filing the serial numbers off?
Because potential buyers would instantly know that they are buying stolen goods. People who would be fine with that might just as easily steal a bike for themselves, making the definitely-stolen-bike market a really weak one.
This isn't true. I know several people that don't care much about buying things with a shady history but would never steal anything themselves. The logic was something like, "Would you still accept a $20 bill if it had been stolen at some point since it was printed?"
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Because the police simply do not care about bike thefts so the criminals know they can get away with it.
I think the question of the OP is why don't the police do anything? It is their job after all.
"The married engineer, who is in his 30s, and has been quietly tracking down stolen bikes for the last year, spoke to the Guardian on the condition of anonymity amid increasing curiosity about his identity, motives and methodology." I'm guessing the main reason he wants anonymity isn't from criminals, but from his family, who would obviously kill him if they knew how much danger he's putting himself into.
Bike thieves are hardly organized criminals with weapons. Probably mostly homeless or very poor people without better ideas. It's a very low margin crime.
http://globalnews.ca/news/785241/bait-bike-leads-whistler-po...
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Plus the article mentions he's a "married engineer, who is in his 30s", a bicycling enthusiast, and six feet, four inches tall. That, combined with the photo, is a pretty thorough description.
Luckily for him it's unlikely bike thieves are reading the guardian or, I hope, HN.
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.
There are commercially available trackers, e.g. http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Bicycle-gps-tracker-GPS-GSM-G...
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Because the police simply do not care about bike thefts so the criminals know they can get away with it.
I think the question of the OP is why don't the police do anything? It is their job after all.
Laws are an excuse to be able to target kinds of activity the government wants to target at the time; it's more "laws enabling cops" than "cops enforcing laws".
That's why drug laws are so handy; all you have to do is say "I smelled marijuana" and you get to throw in jail whichever problem population you're targeting at the moment.