new police unit to tackle bike thefts

mtb-idle

new police unit to tackle bike thefts

thoughts?

AndyManc

PR Stunt, will have minimal effect.

Manchester have free tagging, but how many 'police cars' ' Bike cops' carry the device to read the chips ? , I should imagine none.

What we need is secure,CCTV parking in city centres, locks don't prevent bike theft gangs.


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EKE_38BPM

Good to see they are undercover!

Maybe a few sting operations are called for. Not leaving bikes unlocked as that would be entrapment, but how about attractive bikes locked with crap locks. Unless you are looking for craply locked bikes and are equipped to steal you can't nick it, but if it is stolen and the police are watching its an easy collar.

Or maybe identifiable bikes (chipped, marked, whatever) allowed to be stolen as above, but instead of nicking the thief, following the bike to the point of sale and arresting the seller/fence.

Car theft and theft from cars have fallen loads I think because the police made a proper effort to clamp down on it and manufacturers made cars harder to steal. If the police make the same efforts for bikes, good things could happen.

Some personal responsibility is needed too though. Good locks used correctly help loads.

squired

The obvious question is how far outside zone 1 will this unit go? If they target zone 1 only I'm sure they can make a difference there, but spread them across the whole of Greater London and suddenly the benefits of a team of 30 seem rather minimal. Something is better than nothing I guess.

Is it a coincidence that this team appears at the same time (roughly) as the new cycle hire scheme? I wouldn't mind betting that a large part of their remit will be to stop people stealing or vandilising the new hire bikes, as the press would have a field day if half the bikes were stolen/vandilised in the first 12 months.

rjsterry

AndyManc wrote:

PR Stunt, will have minimal effect.

Manchester have free tagging, but how many 'police cars' ' Bike cops' carry the device to read the chips ? , I should imagine none.

What we need is secure,CCTV parking in city centres, locks don't prevent bike theft gangs.


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Talk about writing it off. As others have pointed out a concerted campaign against car crime has paid off, so why not with bikes? Obviously, they are a bit easier to steal than cars in the first place, but we don't tend to leave expensive satnavs, etc. locked to our bikes either. Let's give them the benefit of the doubt shall we, until we've seen how it pans out.

Granted, tagging everyone's bikes is only a small part of any approach.

Secure public bike parking is a non-starter I think. Not enough space, too expensive (especially with CCTV), too difficult to restrict access without making it a PITA to park your bike there (most car parks are not secure BTW). Oh, and CCTV might make it possible to trace a bike thief if they are stupid enough not to hide their face, but it won't stop bikes from being stolen.