Bike registration - Good/Bad?

snooks

On one of the Boris threads I saw this from "clever pun"
"Saying that Ken wanted cycles to have registrations... I mean seriously."

It got me thinking...well thinking after a couple of bottles of beer and a sizable fine malt whisky (14 year old Caperdonich if anyones interested!! :-) ) Anyway as I was saying, it got me thinking.

Would bike registration be a bad thing?

If a scrote of a thief could see that a bike is registered, would that put them off nicking it, and get them to one that isn't? At the moment I have my old post code stamped on my BB, I couldn't remember if I had or not, and under they mud I can just about make it out, and I know what the letters are. But someone nicking my two wheeled friend wouldn't and doesn't know it's there....should we have some sort of visual deterent on our bikes?...whether that's a reg no. stamped on the frame, or a bright warning sticker? or both? We've all got mobiles, how about having that stamped on the frame somewhere? Would you mind a call out of the blue asking if you sold your bike to joe blogs, as your number was on the frame?

Well that's the good side of it...the bad side is of course it's only a small step from registration to taxation and that is very, very, very, (wishky tkaing efftc heer) very bad!

Any thoughts?

G

baudman

I'm def not against it - but it would be hard to mark the bikes in both a way that was easily seen (to deter thieves, if it in fact would!?) and not easily removed or damaged the bike's finish (which some would complain about).

Here in Melbourne, the question of 'registration' would more be about taxes going towards roads ie: " Get outta my way you f$&(#$% bike rider - I pay registration fees to use this road". Looking at that side of the argument, I'd happily pay some $ for registration to ride in the CBD provided that $ went to better bike lanes/facilites/etc and perhaps some 3rd party insurance? (We're covered if we get hit by a car, but not really for anything else - although I'm a member of Bicycle Victoria so I get insurance thru that).

Sorry - Hope I didn't steal your thread by saying that. I think anything that would help uniquely ID a bike/frame would be good - but it'd require some infrastructure and for people to use it...

Cunobelin

The "I pay road tax" argument is a non-starter.

SImply point out that it is vehicle excise duty (VED) and that it is based on emissions. As a vehicle emitting sess than 100g we are Band A and along with all cars and vehicles at this level pay £0.00, zero, nothing, zilch.

I therefore pay the full and correct duty for my vehicle.

Registration - maybe, but there are a number of problems.

As long as drivers are encouraged by bogus safety campaigns to alter plates, register in other peoples names etc, there will be a number of people who will act illegally.

It is also suggested that 1 in 20 drivers fails to fulfil the requirements of the law and is without insurance - and hence likely not to have paid VED either.

What would be better at this time is to clamp down on the present system with cars and get the loopholes sorted out before extending a flawed system to others.

HJ1976

Simple way to mark a bike would be to get ALL manufactorers to have a serial number stamped or printed onto each frame before the final laquar coatings are applied. or to have a chip like those used by vets for dogs.
Both quite cheap options- I think it cost aroung £20 to get my ex-husbands dogs done.

Hairy Jock

Complete waste of time and money...

snooks

Hairy Jock wrote:

Complete waste of time and money...

What is? Chipping? regisitration? serial numbers? phone numbers?...Help us out here :-)

Jeremy Parker

snooks wrote:

On one of the Boris threads I saw this from "clever pun"
"Saying that Ken wanted cycles to have registrations... I mean seriously."

It got me thinking...well thinking after a couple of bottles of beer and a sizable fine malt whisky (14 year old Caperdonich if anyones interested!! :-) ) Anyway as I was saying, it got me thinking.

Would bike registration be a bad thing?

If a scrote of a thief could see that a bike is registered, would that put them off nicking it, and get them to one that isn't? At the moment I have my old post code stamped on my BB, I couldn't remember if I had or not, and under they mud I can just about make it out, and I know what the letters are. But someone nicking my two wheeled friend wouldn't and doesn't know it's there....should we have some sort of visual deterent on our bikes?...whether that's a reg no. stamped on the frame, or a bright warning sticker? or both? We've all got mobiles, how about having that stamped on the frame somewhere? Would you mind a call out of the blue asking if you sold your bike to joe blogs, as your number was on the frame?

Well that's the good side of it...the bad side is of course it's only a small step from registration to taxation and that is very, very, very, (wishky tkaing efftc heer) very bad!

Any thoughts?

G

I used to live in Washington DC. Bike registration was common there. Whenever the complaints from cyclists about bike theft got too loud, the politicians would say, we've got to do soemthi8ng. Bike registration is something, so we've got to do it.

It took thirteeen schemes to cever the whole metropolitan area Some of them were voluntary, some were compulsory. Some had reciprocity with other schemes, others had never thought that a bike might cross a politcal boundary The winner for schemes was probably the City of Takoma Park. That straddled a county boundary, and in either part of the city one was subject to three schemes, city, county, and state.

Did anyone there, from police to bike thieves, take any notice of bike registration? I will let you guess. Do the police here take any notice. I 'll let you guess. How many people on this list know that in London, for bike registration, a bike counts as an honorary mobile phone, and you can register it under that scheme. How many police know? does Ken Livingstone know? Does Boris Johnson know? Do you know?

Jeremy Parker

HJ1976

Jeremy Parker wrote:

[How many people on this list know that in London, for bike registration, a bike counts as an honorary mobile phone, and you can register it under that scheme. How many police know? does Ken Livingstone know? Does Boris Johnson know? Do you know?

Jeremy Parker

Does it, how?

I work for a cell phone company and while we like to think that we can stop a phone from being abused once it is stolen, an IMEI or GPS tracker is pretty useless- common sense and security conciousness are the only real options.

Here's another thought- all companies offering the Cycle to work scheme should be forced as part of that scheme to offer 100% theft proof storage facilities at their sites.

snooks

HJ1976 wrote:

Here's another thought- all companies offering the Cycle to work scheme should be forced as part of that scheme to offer 100% theft proof storage facilities at their sites.

Luckily my company (who offer ride2work) offer secure(ish) parking for bikes...Only staff who cycle in (or staff in general) have access to the bike storage...and my bike is well locked up at home when it's there

I don't leave my bike on the streets, prolly one of the reasons I've had the same bike for 18 years :cool:
.

Yorkshireman

HJ1976 wrote:

Simple way to mark a bike would be to get ALL manufactorers to have a serial number stamped or printed onto each frame before the final laquar coatings are applied. or to have a chip like those used by vets for dogs.
Both quite cheap options- I think it cost aroung £20 to get my ex-husbands dogs done.

Not being in the habit of upending other peoples machines to check, I assume that most are. All mine - even going back many, many years were stamped with an individual series of numbers and letters under the bottom bracket/head tube/rear stay as each manufacturer saw fit. Sadly I think that some owners are not aware, or don't bother to make a note of the markings .

Buggi

Your car is registered and people still nick it don't they? so why would it make a difference if you're bike got nicked. the only difference it would make is that big brother would be able to track you and before you know it they'll be introducing bike laws and you'll be getting fined for stupid stuff.

if you're bike's worth a lot of money then a tracking device might help, like they have in cars.

Yorkshireman

No form of registration can stop bikes being nicked, but if you have a record of the individual number of the bike and it turns up somewhere it's fairly easy to prove ownership. In fact a lot of police authorities ran a registration scheme for that reason some years ago, but due to a possible lack of 'enthusiasm'/funding mixed results were experienced.

Wynne G Oldman

The really silly thing about my Dawes Super Galaxy is that the frame number is underneath the bottom bracket. Only trouble is that it's mainly obscured by the plastic cable guide for the control cables for the gears. I'd love to know which genius set up this arrangement!

adifiddler

All bike frames are given a serial number and it is to be found under the BB. Get your bike registered with Retainagroup, it costs about £11 and your frame is acid etched with UV ink, many police forces have a program with LBS to have this system of marking done for around £3. There is a sticker with a serial number cut into it, this is stick on the frame in a visible place so thieves know the bike is registered. If the sticker is removed the UV etching is still there. This system registers your bike on the national crime database so the police can see who the owner is whether it is a stolen bike or not the same as the police checking a cars reg.

Also it is worth registering your bake with Immobilise which is free.

Jeremy Parker

HJ1976 wrote:

Jeremy Parker wrote:

[How many people on this list know that in London, for bike registration, a bike counts as an honorary mobile phone, and you can register it under that scheme. How many police know? does Ken Livingstone know? Does Boris Johnson know? Do you know?

Jeremy Parker

Does it, how?

I work for a cell phone company and while we like to think that we can stop a phone from being abused once it is stolen, an IMEI or GPS tracker is pretty useless- common sense and security conciousness are the only real options.

Here's another thought- all companies offering the Cycle to work scheme should be forced as part of that scheme to offer 100% theft proof storage facilities at their sites.

I don't know how the scheme works, even for phones.

I don't agree with forcing people offering the bike-to-work scheme to do anything. That will only encourage them to drop out of the scheme, and decide that they really don't want to employ cyclists

Jeremy Parker

snooks

adifiddler wrote:

Also it is worth registering your bake with Immobilise which is free.

I've done that, but to be honest, lil bike thief wouldn't know whether I had or not...and how many coppers would know what a "1989 Kona Fire Mountain" would look like?...even if it has a "blue frame and white paint splashes over it"?...and even if they did know what one looked like, and saw one locked up would they look under the BB...Would they hell?

But if lil bike thief could see that the bike is registered, with a lil sticker...would they move on? I dunno, guess we should catch a scote and see what they have to say...decoy anyone? :-)

Like the idea of th UV sticker though :-)
.

John Stevenson

Registration's not going to deter bike thieves. These are human disasters addicted to heroin or methamphetamine, looking for the price of their next fix. We're not talking people with advanced notions of consequentiality here.

Beyond that, cars are registered because their use poses a sufficiently high risk to other road users that it's worth the cost and inconvenience of a tracking and control system. Hence, licensing, registration etc etc.

The same's simply not true for bikes.

mojo.bloke

They do this in Florida, but to be honest with ya bike theft is not high on a bobby's list when you stand it next to drugs, murder, rape and the terrorist threat, know what I mean.

Jeremy Parker

mojo.bloke wrote:

They do this in Florida, but to be honest with ya bike theft is not high on a bobby's list when you stand it next to drugs, murder, rape and the terrorist threat, know what I mean.

Bike registrations do have one use so far as police are concerned. Even if registration is compulsory, most people won't do it, no matter what the law says. This is a useful tool for harassing cyclists, especially keeping cyclists out of the "wrong" neighbourhoods, such as poor black kids riding round rich white neighbourhoods

Jeremy Parker

adifiddler

john_stevenson wrote:

Registration's not going to deter bike thieves.

No they wont but my point is that the police often stop know troublemakers and thieves on a regular basses. If the person is on a bike the police often know its a stolen bike but unless it has been reported as stolen they have no proof so they have to let the person go on there way but if the bike is registered and recorded on the nation police computer the police can make a simple check and see who the registered owner is, if the person does not match these details then the police can make further enquiries.

Now the kids are on summer holidays the police are out in force on foot and bike patrols in my area and they are stopping many kids on bikes and checking bikes, my son has been stopped twice and let on his way once the registration has been checked. My son said it was stupid when i registered his bike but has recently commented that the police let him go with the minimum of fuss once the bike has been checked where as his mates are often asked lots of questions about there bikes and kept there for some time. Many of them are actually getting there bikes registered just to get an easier time when they are stopped.

My son is 19 years old and we live in one of the rougher areas in town which is chav central, most of the kids are up to no good at some point and the police are justified in stop checking them. It helps the chavs realise that they are likely to be stopped and if they are on a stolen bike and it has been registered they will be dealt with for theft. These chavs are still stealing bikes but they are less likely to steal a bike that is registered and marked.

It is recorded fact that items that are marked are less likely to be stolen. Being arrested is an occupational hazard for a thief and if the goods are marked the thief is guilty but if it is not marked there is no proof he is the not the owner so will be released.

For the cost of a few quid it makes sense getting your bike registered. I have worked in the security industry all of my life and i understand how and why thieves operate and we make life very easy for them by not marking our property and/or not securing it properly.

Buggi

i can kind of see ya point now.