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

Why Stealing Cars Went Out of Fashion

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 117 posts

Re: Why Stealing Cars Went Out of Fashion

#61

Post by kalleboo »

jzwinck wrote: post #45
leonhandreke wrote: post #16

I wish bicycle theft was tackled in a similar fashion. A combination of factors seems to be at play here: Photo ID required to sell the car and technological hurdles that are too hard to overcome for small criminals. With embedded computer chips being so cheap nowadays, surely it should be possible to embed some sort of tracking system in bicycle frames.

If you want to reduce bicycle theft in the US, the solution is simple: drastically increase the penalties for perpetrators. Get caught stealing a bike? One year in jail. Adjust until the level of theft is where you want it to be. Stealing a bike is not just taking $300 or whatever from the owner. It's robbing that cyclist and would-be cyclists of the confidence to use their preferred mode of transportation, and deter…

> If you want to reduce bicycle theft in the US, the solution is simple: drastically increase the penalties for perpetrators

Then why don't we just give every crime the death penalty? Boom, overnight there's no more crime!

Re: Why Stealing Cars Went Out of Fashion

#62

Post by infinite8s »

svantana wrote: post #36
michaelt wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, with modern car immobilisers you can't bypass them or break them, because they're built right into the ECU that runs the spark plugs and whatnot. There's not really an equivalent for that in bicycles - a vital electronic component that, if removed, makes the bike unusable. Sure, you can get a bike tracker on ebay, but if trackers were making a significant dent in bicycle theft, thieves would just look for them…

Well surely the entire bicycle frame could be used as an antenna? Then the electronics could fit deep inside the frame, which would make it quite difficult to disable. A problem would be how to power the device though.

Maybe the tracker could be powered by usage of the bike.

Re: Why Stealing Cars Went Out of Fashion

#63

Post by gambiting »

ejstronge wrote: post #53
jzwinck wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to reduce bicycle theft in the US, the solution is simple: drastically increase the penalties for perpetrators. Get caught stealing a bike? One year in jail. Adjust until the level of theft is where you want it to be. Stealing a bike is not just taking $300 or whatever from the owner. It's robbing that cyclist and would-be cyclists of the confidence to use their preferred mode of transportation, and deter…

I understand the motivation behind what you're suggesting but I don't think jail time is a fair deterrent. I think (this is anecdata from some bike theft victims, including myself) that there are folks who steal bikes to ride them, potentially for transportation to work/school, and those who steal bikes to sell them elsewhere. We should find a way to deter both groups but putting someone in jail for a $300 (let's say…

I had a bike stolen from me, when someone broke into my back yard(breaking down the gate), sawed off the railing the bike was attached to and took the bike together with the railing(the bike was attached with a Kryptonite lock, which I guess was a lot harder to break than the railing itself). Yeah you're right, the crime was not violent, and the bike was worth 2x the minimum wage where I come from, which is not a lot(~800 USD). The gate was also fairly easy to fix, as was the railing.

But it's not the violence or the financial damage. It was the fact that I stopped feeling safe in my own house. That the area that I once though was friendly and safe is now filling me with dread and I was so worried about living there that year later I had to move out. That every time I heard noises in the back yard I had to get out of my bed and look out of the window. I shrugged off the financial loss of my bike very easily - but the physiological damage was much greater. Now if you asked me if I want the bike thieves to be put in prison, I would say - absolutely, positively yes. I hate and despise people who steal and I understand how deeply theft can affect a well being of a person, regardless of the value of stolen goods.

Re: Why Stealing Cars Went Out of Fashion

#64

Post by gambiting »

infinite8s wrote: post #62
svantana wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well surely the entire bicycle frame could be used as an antenna? Then the electronics could fit deep inside the frame, which would make it quite difficult to disable. A problem would be how to power the device though.

Maybe the tracker could be powered by usage of the bike.

You want the wheels on a bike to spin as freely as possible, any added resistance is unwelcome because it makes cycling harder - and you would need to add resistance to generate electricity. Personally I even hate the dynamos that power the lights, because their effect can definitely be felt when you ride.

Re: Why Stealing Cars Went Out of Fashion

#65

Post by samastur »

gambiting wrote: post #47
leke wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about RFID chips built inside the frame. Then your town would make hidden readers, placed around the city (close to cameras), that could alert authorities of a reported stolen bicycle being ridden. Make the thieves pay a hefty fine to recouporate some of the expense of the system.

The problem is that especially inside the EU, bikes are stolen almost in bulk, then loaded into trucks and taken outside the country - even if you get stopped at the border(which is super rare, thanks to the Schoengen zone), it's impossible to check the serial numbers of the bikes - if there are any databases, they are usually not ran by the police, and there are absolutely zero international databases for bikes. Eas…

I live in Slovenia which is commonly considered east EU. Guess what, bikes get stolen here as well (not sure I know any cyclist who hasn't had one stolen at some point).

And your 90% estimate is as offensive as wrong.

Re: Why Stealing Cars Went Out of Fashion

#66

Post by digitalengineer »

jkbyc wrote: post #58
gambiting wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that especially inside the EU, bikes are stolen almost in bulk, then loaded into trucks and taken outside the country - even if you get stopped at the border(which is super rare, thanks to the Schoengen zone), it's impossible to check the serial numbers of the bikes - if there are any databases, they are usually not ran by the police, and there are absolutely zero international databases for bikes. Eas…

I can assure you that people in eastern Europe, the Czech republic at least, also do complain about having their nice new bikes stolen. Just to put things into perspective, eastern EU is not some wild west.

Agreed, but in Western Europe it is party time for criminals from Eastern Europe. Just read this (left-leaning and pro-european) newspaper article: http://bit.ly/1q6fWur

Re: Why Stealing Cars Went Out of Fashion

#67

Post by annnnd »

gambiting wrote: post #64
infinite8s wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe the tracker could be powered by usage of the bike.

You want the wheels on a bike to spin as freely as possible, any added resistance is unwelcome because it makes cycling harder - and you would need to add resistance to generate electricity. Personally I even hate the dynamos that power the lights, because their effect can definitely be felt when you ride.

I wonder if vibration would suffice? Depends on the state of the roads I guess. ;)

Re: Why Stealing Cars Went Out of Fashion

#68

Post by slyall »

michaelt wrote: post #31
leonhandreke wrote: post #16

I wish bicycle theft was tackled in a similar fashion. A combination of factors seems to be at play here: Photo ID required to sell the car and technological hurdles that are too hard to overcome for small criminals. With embedded computer chips being so cheap nowadays, surely it should be possible to embed some sort of tracking system in bicycle frames.

Well, with modern car immobilisers you can't bypass them or break them, because they're built right into the ECU that runs the spark plugs and whatnot. There's not really an equivalent for that in bicycles - a vital electronic component that, if removed, makes the bike unusable. Sure, you can get a bike tracker on ebay, but if trackers were making a significant dent in bicycle theft, thieves would just look for them…

What about something like Microdots which can be applied to the frame and other parts? They seem to be common in places to deter theft of cars and other items

http://www.mydatatags.com/

Re: Why Stealing Cars Went Out of Fashion

#69

Post by Ma8ee »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #30
kalleboo wrote: post #6

Is this native advertising? > One of the factors that keeps car theft going in the United States is the reliability of old Hondas. Eventually, mid-1990s sedans should become too old to be worth stealing at all, but that hasn’t happened yet. “They keep running,” said Mr. Morris, and therefore they keep being stolen.

To be honest, "our cars are very reliable but they're likely to get stolen" isn't very good advertising, :p.

But "our cars are very reliable and no longer very likely to get stolen" is.

Re: Why Stealing Cars Went Out of Fashion

#70

Post by CalRobert »

thelettere wrote: post #50
jzwinck wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to reduce bicycle theft in the US, the solution is simple: drastically increase the penalties for perpetrators. Get caught stealing a bike? One year in jail. Adjust until the level of theft is where you want it to be. Stealing a bike is not just taking $300 or whatever from the owner. It's robbing that cyclist and would-be cyclists of the confidence to use their preferred mode of transportation, and deter…

They've done studies on the effect of increasing penalties on crime, and it's virtually nil.

Who are "they"?
Post reply on HN