One of the biggest obstacles to riding in a big city is the problem of how to leave your bike safely at your destination. Bike theft is an issue that just seems to be determined to stay.
The London Cycling Campaign has found that one in six cyclists have recognised a stolen bike on websites such as Gumtree and eBay and that as many as 80% have had a bike stolen. The survey was done to promote a new anti theft campaign called Beat the Thief, which has some common-sense ideas about clamping down on both the number of bikes stolen and the market for them once they are stolen.
Perhaps what we should be looking for is a response as demonstrated in St Louis, where mountain bike-riding cops are armed and trained to use their weapons in the fight against bicycle crime. It might discourage a bike thief to have a police officer with a handgun launching themselves at them. However, you do then run the risk of escalating the danger that is posed by the thieves, if they then proceed to arm themselves against the police. In LA (where else?) there have been reports of armed thieves taking bikes, and shooting the owners who try to stop them. On balance I’d rather lose my bike than be shot in the act of trying to keep it, and the thought that stealing a bike is seen as potentially worth taking someone’s life for is more than a little bit scary.
Perhaps, though, some people will just steal anything. In Hungary it looks like if there isn’t a bike to take from the bike rack, then thieves will just satisfy themselves with taking the bike rack itself. Quite frankly I don’t know how you should respond to a threat like that – perhaps there's an emerging market for bike-rack racks to make sure that they stay where you left them.
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