Swifter than eagles. And stolen By Boris Johnson

Membrane

"First there was shock. Then there was grief. Then rage. There was a moment of shock when I rounded the corner the other night because, no matter how often it has happened to you, it is always a gulp-making thing to look at the railings where you left your bike, and see that for the seventh time in as many years some cowardly little fiend has used a combination of violence and ingenuity to steal it."

Full article: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2007/08/02/do0201.xml

Ghost Rider

Mop-headed Tory toff though he may be, I have to agree with him on that issue.

I suspect a system for chipping and tracking bikes would not cost the state a fortune to implement and cyclists could subvent it themselves for a few quid a pop. Maybe it's time to start lobbying the Greens about it...?

Membrane wrote:

"First there was shock. Then there was grief. Then rage. There was a moment of shock when I rounded the corner the other night because, no matter how often it has happened to you, it is always a gulp-making thing to look at the railings where you left your bike, and see that for the seventh time in as many years some cowardly little fiend has used a combination of violence and ingenuity to steal it."

Full article: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2007/08/02/do0201.xml

rubadub

In a thread in afterhours I was talking about my dream of being a vigilante against bike thiefs. Locking my new bike up where my old one was nicked. Stick a crap lock on it, lie in wait with a few mates, a can of pepper spray and some hammerite & glue. Spray the lad who goes to nick it, then Ulock his head to the bike rack. Paint BIKE THIEF on his head and cable tie his hands, glue his mouth shut. Passers by will hopefully spit on him rather than help, and the gardai wont be in a hurry to help him, other potential thieve might be put off too.

I doubt the gardai would give a damn about this vigilantism, seeing as they do not give a damn about bike theft. The theft of a bike is treated like kids stealing each others football/marbles/lunch, so I would hope attacking a bike thief would be treated like kids having a scrap in the school yard.

Ghost Rider

The idea of locking a bike thief to a bike rack is inspired.

What's more, if you were to do it, film it and post it to YouTube, I suspect you would be globally hailed as a champion of all that is righteous within a matter of hours.

Not that I'm suggesting you try it or anything...;)

rubadub wrote:

In a thread in afterhours I was talking about my dream of being a vigilante against bike thiefs. Locking my new bike up where my old one was nicked. Stick a crap lock on it, lie in wait with a few mates, a can of pepper spray and some hammerite & glue. Spray the lad who goes to nick it, then Ulock his head to the bike rack. Paint BIKE THIEF on his head and cable tie his hands, glue his mouth shut. Passers by will hopefully spit on him rather than help, and the gardai wont be in a hurry to help him, other potential thieve might be put off too.

I doubt the gardai would give a damn about this vigilantism, seeing as they do not give a damn about bike theft. The theft of a bike is treated like kids stealing each others football/marbles/lunch, so I would hope attacking a bike thief would be treated like kids having a scrap in the school yard.

daymobrew

Ghost Rider wrote:

I suspect a system for chipping and tracking bikes would not cost the state a fortune to implement and cyclists could subvent it themselves for a few quid a pop. Maybe it's time to start lobbying the Greens about it...?

The Datatag system costs 27 euro.
I know that the Datatag company provide scanners to the UK police.

rubadub wrote:

In a thread in afterhours I was talking about my dream of being a vigilante against bike thiefs.

I too have had evil dreams of revenge for those who have stolen my bikes.

Capt'n Midnight

daymobrew wrote:

The Datatag system costs 27 euro.
I know that the Datatag company provide scanners to the UK police.
I too have had evil dreams of revenge for those who have stolen my bikes.

only of use if the bike is recovered as it's short range
do the Guards have many even if only in Kevin Street ?

daymobrew

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

only of use if the bike is recovered as it's short range
do the Guards have many even if only in Kevin Street ?

DataTag is not a tracking device - it does require that the Gardai recover the bicycle.
I doubt that the Gardai have any though IIRC DataTag would provide them with some readers (I emailed them a year or two back).

antoinolachtnai

Well, bikes already have serial numbers. Why not have an international public bicycle ownership database on the web? You could type in a bike's serial number to find out who the owner is, and to find out whether the person selling it actually owned it.

RainyDay

antoinolachtnai wrote:

Well, bikes already have serial numbers. Why not have an international public bicycle ownership database on the web? You could type in a bike's serial number to find out who the owner is, and to find out whether the person selling it actually owned it.

Do you really want anyone who has physical access to your bike (to read the serial number) having access to your name/address? How would you ensure that the database is updated everytime a second-hand bike is sold?

antoinolachtnai

Definitely, there are privacy concerns. Well, you wouldn't necessarily have to put in your own name/address as the publicly available address - you could put in the name/address of the bike shop where you bought it for instance.

Updating any database is an issue. For updating the database, I'd say that people would bother for an expensive bike but wouldn't bother for a cheap one. There's also the issue of making sure that the update data is legit.

There's already the Stolen Bicycle Registry (http://www.stolenbicycleregistry.com/) but it seems to be very small.