Several years ago, Steve Levitt and Ian Ayres wrote a paper about Lojack, the silent anti-auto-theft device. They found that crime theft falls overall in areas where even a small percentage of the cars carry Lojack. I got to thinking about Lojack when we received this e-mail the other day from a reader frustrated with the volume of bicycle thefts in Brooklyn. It’s hard to imagine Lojack for bikes — the cost of a car is what makes Lojack worthwhile — but it’s also hard to imagine that there aren’t some creative solutions to the problem. Feel free to post them below. Here, meanwhile, is the reader’s e-mail:…a problem that’s been plaguing my Brooklyn neighborhood lately: bike theft. More specifically, the theft of bike parts (whichever parts — wheels, baskets, bells, etc. — happen to be unlocked). Being merely a disgruntled citizen, I don’t have any statistics on just how rampant this epidemic is, but, based on anecdotal evidence, I’d say very. The bike locks that I see most often see can only reach around the frame and one wheel — every time you lock up, you’re making a considerable gamble (even if you could lock up both wheels and the frame you’d be making a gamble, of course). Buying a second lock (which I’ve now done) is a) costly and b) cumbersome – lugging around one bulky lock is bad enough, but two really does make going for a ride much less appealing. Can you think of any better solutions? Is there a way that the police ought to be deterring bike theft that they aren’t? Is there something that we as a neighborhood ought to be doing?
Lojack for Bikes?
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Park your bike next to one that looks similar but has a cheaper lock. That’s what I do.
With enough patience and ingenuity, it should be relatively easy to catch a bike thief in the act, if by nothing else, by staking out places where people lock their bikes. The value to society of taking a single bike thief off the streets must be significant and surely worth someone’s time to man such a stakeout. For example, if taking a bike thief off the streets is worth $1000 to society, and thefts are so rampant that a smart stake-out artist can catch one thief a week, then someone should be willing to take the job. The question is how to quantify the benefit of a conviction and who will pay the $1000. On the latter point, insurance companies may be a logical choice, but most bike theft probably falls within deductibles. The other major stakeholders are bike shops. On the one hand, you could argue that bike shops do a booming business in replacement bikes and parts necessitated by bike theft. On the other hand, many people like me, probably have just given up on bikes as a form of transportation, owing to the risks and hassels of bike theft. If bike shops see bike theft in their area as harmful to business, maybe they could be convinced to fund some kind of reward program for information leading to convictions of bike thieves.
I protect my home with a 2″x5″ security system sticker. Similarly, we don’t need to equip all bikes with Lojack, just a few of them, and the rest with “This bike tracked by Lojack” stickers. A punk won’t know whether there’s really a tracking device or not, and he’ll have to ask himself, “Do I feel lucky?”
Then again, I bet stolen bikes change hands much more quickly than cars do. And even if you can trace it, what then? Good luck getting the police to care. Our car culture being what it is, authorities will care a lot more about a $2,000 Geo than a $4,000 Colnago.
As a neighborhood, fake surveillance cameras (or real ones if willing to foot the bill, they aren’t that expensive) would be a suitable deterrent. Or in lieu of actual cameras, perhaps a sign stating that the area is monitored by video surveillance would do the trick. As the previous poster stated, sometimes just the sign stating a deterrent is in place is enough to make a casual thief move along.
The last option which would probably save you the most money (but not time) would be to walk.
Try quick-release hubs, with a similar mechanism for the seat, pedals, etc. The released wheel can be locked to the other wheel and the frame, and the seat, pedals, etc. can be carried away by their owner.
Alternatively, what about a bag or case covering the entire locked bike (not unlike the kind of cover used to park expensive sports cars outdoors) which is hard to open, and is locked to the signpost or railing, along with the bike? It would have to be unlocked, opened, and/or cut open in order to free the bike, all of which would draw attention to the fact that a bike theft is taking place. It would also slow down the thief considerably.
What I usually do, is torrentially abuse my bike so that:
a) it’s extremely ugly to look at
b) it smells
Also worth considering is painting your BIKE bright pink, I have it bright orange, but it’s mostly covered in mud. I don’t even lock it, and no one actually bothers taking it.
The general solution:
buy a bike second hand, you don’t need to show people you have money I don’t. Never wash it. My bike does what it’s ment to do, brakes and rides me from point A to B.
And when the breaks don’t work, that’s when all the fun starts…
Maybe, Brooklin should pay for a few cyclists to tour the area and just deal with those thieves.
I don’t know real details, but I would guess that Lojack works in cars not only because of the relative cost in relation to a car, but also because it can use the car’s electric system for power. If this is the case it’d be pretty difficult to use it in a bike…
I searched for something like that since ages, and yes the main problem is battery life. However some RFID system should be possible, with some RFID gates at strategic positions in the cities. However it has yet to be invented …
Why not do like some European cities and make bikes available throughout the area, so that you ride from point A to B and then drop it off at a communal parking spot. All the bikes are painted a bright colour with the name of the city. Not worth stealing and everyone knows where it came from.