[leonhandreke]

I wish bicycle theft was tackled in a similar fashion. A combination of factors seems to be at play here: Photo ID required to sell the car and technological hurdles that are too hard to overcome for small criminals. With embedded computer chips being so cheap nowadays, surely it should be possible to embed some sort of tracking system in bicycle frames.

[michaelt]

Well, with modern car immobilisers you can't bypass them or break them, because they're built right into the ECU that runs the spark plugs and whatnot.

There's not really an equivalent for that in bicycles - a vital electronic component that, if removed, makes the bike unusable. Sure, you can get a bike tracker on ebay, but if trackers were making a significant dent in bicycle theft, thieves would just look for them and remove or disable them. For trackers to get a signal the antennas have to be exposed, making it a simple enough matter to put a nail through the patch antenna.

[superpatosainz]

Some Chilean startup is trying to do something akin to that, embedding a big lock in the frame, so stealing the bike would render it useless (tho, of course, it's an urban-only bike).

http://nadiemelaroba.cl

[Shivetya]

The issues I see with preventing bike theft include that its just so easy to take parts off of one, so even if you could prevent taking the whole bike some of the other parts have value too.

Only solutions I see are, having secure parking for bikes offered for pay, as benefit of employment, or venue provided. What makes a bike a pain to store besides length is the handle bars and foot pegs stick out. So design a handle bar with a pin so it can be rotated alone the bikes axis when parked and folding pedals. Then you can box store them narrowly akin to bus lockers.

Still the primary deterrent to theft is putting it where its at risk and if that means not taking it, well.

[svantana]

Well surely the entire bicycle frame could be used as an antenna? Then the electronics could fit deep inside the frame, which would make it quite difficult to disable. A problem would be how to power the device though.

[infinite8s]

Maybe the tracker could be powered by usage of the bike.

[gambiting]

You want the wheels on a bike to spin as freely as possible, any added resistance is unwelcome because it makes cycling harder - and you would need to add resistance to generate electricity. Personally I even hate the dynamos that power the lights, because their effect can definitely be felt when you ride.

[jarek]

Modern electronics don't really need that much, and/or the dynamos have improved. I had a bike with 90s-style dynamo and it was indeed a slight pain. Today I ride Bixi/Alta bikeshare bicycles - they have something to power the lights, but any impedance it creates is too small to notice.

[greenpresident]

Hub dynamos are very efficient. I do not feel a difference riding with or without one. For street speeds of around 20km/h in an urban environment they create mechanical drag of around 6 watts [1] with the lights switched on.

http://www.bikequarterly.com/VBQgenerator.pdf

[annnnd]

I wonder if vibration would suffice? Depends on the state of the roads I guess. ;)

[slyall]

What about something like Microdots which can be applied to the frame and other parts? They seem to be common in places to deter theft of cars and other items

http://www.mydatatags.com/

[mseebach]

I've had two bikes stolen, both correctly registered in every relevant registry and one with microdots. Not a word.

The economics are extremely simple: There is a significant market for "don't ask, don't tell [if they're stolen]" bicycles. The same probably exists for cars which is why it took immobilizers (not frame/engine serial numbers) to curb theft.

A further complication makes a bicycle immobilizer impractical: It is trivial and not even very conspicuous to carry a bicycle quite far, or stick it in a car. That allows you to remove the bicycle to a private location where you can remove or destroy the immobilizer - if you could do the same with a car, I'm sure immobilizers would be less effective.

[vasiliys]

From http://www.mydatatags.com/how-it-works/how-microdots-work

> Step 4

> Recover Your Property

> If the police or a good Samaritan find your lost or stolen assets marked with our microtag technology and contacts MyDataTags, we will inform you and give you their contact information so you can recover your personal property.

So it's a serial number that nobody will notice (1mm black dot) or be able to read (I would assume it's gunk to be scratched off, not taken to with a magnifying glass).

Maybe I'm missing their key point, but on a bicycle the reasonable responsible buyer will just run the serial through whatever stolen registry is most popular in their area, not scour the bike for tiny secret illuminati codes.

[mseebach]

A responsible buyer will require an original invoice that matches the frame number, or assume that the bike is stolen.

[colanderman]

I certainly don't have the original invoice for my 15-year-old bike.

[jzwinck]

If you want to reduce bicycle theft in the US, the solution is simple: drastically increase the penalties for perpetrators. Get caught stealing a bike? One year in jail. Adjust until the level of theft is where you want it to be.

Stealing a bike is not just taking $300 or whatever from the owner. It's robbing that cyclist and would-be cyclists of the confidence to use their preferred mode of transportation, and deteriorating their health in the long term. This is a lot more damaging than non-cyclists often intuit, and insurance cannot cover it. The penalty for stealing bicycles should be closer to the penalty for stealing a car and intentionally injuring someone. Currently it's close to zero.

[ejstronge]

I understand the motivation behind what you're suggesting but I don't think jail time is a fair deterrent.

I think (this is anecdata from some bike theft victims, including myself) that there are folks who steal bikes to ride them, potentially for transportation to work/school, and those who steal bikes to sell them elsewhere.

We should find a way to deter both groups but putting someone in jail for a $300 (let's say $600 to cover some of the unintended effects you mention) probably won't stop the commercial thieves as they'll find other lackeys to do the theft.

On a more important note, I feel uncomfortable having someone locked up, costing taxpayer money, for committing a non-violent crime whose damages are less than two weeks' pay at minimum wage.

[gambiting]

I had a bike stolen from me, when someone broke into my back yard(breaking down the gate), sawed off the railing the bike was attached to and took the bike together with the railing(the bike was attached with a Kryptonite lock, which I guess was a lot harder to break than the railing itself). Yeah you're right, the crime was not violent, and the bike was worth 2x the minimum wage where I come from, which is not a lot(~800 USD). The gate was also fairly easy to fix, as was the railing.

But it's not the violence or the financial damage. It was the fact that I stopped feeling safe in my own house. That the area that I once though was friendly and safe is now filling me with dread and I was so worried about living there that year later I had to move out. That every time I heard noises in the back yard I had to get out of my bed and look out of the window. I shrugged off the financial loss of my bike very easily - but the physiological damage was much greater. Now if you asked me if I want the bike thieves to be put in prison, I would say - absolutely, positively yes. I hate and despise people who steal and I understand how deeply theft can affect a well being of a person, regardless of the value of stolen goods.

[jzwinck]

I felt exactly the same way after a gang stole a camera lens from my bag while it was strapped onto my body in Russia. They (3-5 people) surrounded me on a street in broad daylight, shoved me in various directions, separated my $1000 lens from myself, and ran off. I had a new lens shipped to me in a week, but the psychological change has lasted for years.

[Shivetya]

So how do we deter people from stealing other people's stuff without jail time or financial penalty? Where is the dollar limit? You have one else you would not bandy about numbers. Three hundred might not be much to some of us but for others it might be that weeks pay. Should the penalty be proportional to the effect it has on the victim? Steal from the poor and suffer more?

Crime occurs when penalties make it more profitable to commit the crime than not. The cost to society is paying to prosecute, reform, or lockup, people who do not adhere to the standards of the society they live in.

How about community service, at minimum wage until the work equals the value of what was stolen even if even the items were recovered? It will cost society money to manage it but it keeps the person off the street for part of the day and might teach them something useful, like being polite in a polite society

[mortov]

Spoken like a true American ! After all, if stealing a king size snickers bar deserves 16 years (http://www.commondreams.org/headlines/040700-01.htm), stealing a bicycle needs some serious deterrent sentencing. Sure, he was a recidivist and had previously stolen some Oreo cookies too !

Or, it's a bicycle - keep things in proportion. Sure it sucks to have stuff stolen (I've been a victim too) but crazy disproportionate sentencing has made criminal justice in the US just insane.

Your proposal sounds great, just like all the other get tough on crime initiatives over the past 40 odd years but it has left the US with what looks like the craziest most vengeful 'justice' system outside of the Sharia introduced by ISIS.

It's all great until you happen to fall foul of these get tough initiatives - see lots of previous HN stories for examples.

[jzwinck]

I don't live in America. When I did, I felt more similar to how you do now. Today I live somewhere with harsh penalties for crimes, and the effects are very visible. You can leave your smartphone on a table while you go buy food and no one will take it. People lock up pretty decent bikes with simple cable locks. Peace of mind is worth something; protecting people who steal is not helping anyone.

I thought this would be obvious, but I am not arguing for 16 year sentences for stealing food. Food theft is one thing for which the penalty is a real conundrum (maybe the guy was really hungry).

[_delirium]

I can believe there are places that happen to have both harsh penalties and low crime rates, but I'm more skeptical of a general relationship. I believe studies in the U.S. have found that varying probability of punishment significantly varies deterrence (people aren't deterred if they believe they have a low chance of being caught), but that revising sentence levels upwards or downwards has virtually no effect.

As long as we're trading anecdotes, I live somewhere with very lenient penalties for crimes and what you describe is also true here. People typically don't even bother with a cable lock, they just use an O-lock [1] that locks the rear wheel to itself, whose main purpose is to make it inconvenient to ride off with the bike.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_city_bike#O-lock

[thelettere]

They've done studies on the effect of increasing penalties on crime, and it's virtually nil.

[CalRobert]

Who are "they"?

[thelettere]

Researchers. There have been innumerable studies on the subject - but really it's common sense. If you're a criminal you're unlikely to be particularly adept at the art of deliberation - otherwise you would choose a different way of life. But for evidence here's a somewhat recent review: http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/1147698?uid=3739920&ui...

Also, interestingly, deterrence is not the primary reason most people push for harsher penalties. Rather it is punishment for its own sake: http://www.law.asu.edu/files/!NoTemplate/why%20do%20we%20pun...

[MrBuddyCasino]

In islamic countries with sharia law, nobody steals, since you risk loosing a hand. Not that I recommend that approach, but I'd be careful with such statements.

[celticninja]

Sounds like bullshit.

If that was the case they would not be whipping, beheading, stoning, maiming and executing people in these countries. (spoiler:they are doing all of these things).

It's like saying because of the death penalty there are no murders in states that enforce the death penalty. When in actual fact it looks like it poses no deterrent at all.

[dagw]

In islamic countries with sharia law, nobody steals, since you risk loosing a hand

Really? Do you have any evidence to back up that claim?

[MrBuddyCasino]

I know people that grew up there. I believe them. Thats all I can say.

[dagw]

If you can manage to prove that statement you'll basically have proven the P=NP of criminology

[CalRobert]

That seems unlikely given that ISIS has apparently been stealing the homes and possessions of the Yazidi.

[kalleboo]

> If you want to reduce bicycle theft in the US, the solution is simple: drastically increase the penalties for perpetrators

Then why don't we just give every crime the death penalty? Boom, overnight there's no more crime!

[mseebach]

> drastically increase the penalties for perpetrators

We could start at the start: increase the risk of getting caught at all, to something not zero.

[SeanDav]

Sometimes there is a huge financial incentive to avoid making something unprofitably to steal. For example it has long been technically possible to render stolen phones unusable but this has never been done because there is very little financial incentive to do so, in fact there is financial incentive not to do so because it would effect negatively effect sales of new phones if no phone got stolen.

It would not surprise me at all if something similar was at play here with bicycles. If every bicycle had to be micro-doted (or chipped etc) and registered and bicycles were subject to spot checks, bicycle theft would fall hugely, but where is the incentive?

[uptown]

Seems like some physical attributes of bicycles make them difficult to apply similar protections. I'd like to see a lock that has an acoustic alarm (similar to those panic keychains that emit a very loud high-pitched sound when activated) combined with a dye-pack component that emits a plume of bank-grade dye when compromised. Add those to a best-in-class lock design and I think you'd have a decent deterrent.

[leke]

How about RFID chips built inside the frame. Then your town would make hidden readers, placed around the city (close to cameras), that could alert authorities of a reported stolen bicycle being ridden. Make the thieves pay a hefty fine to recouporate some of the expense of the system.

[joosters]

So you would like the government to track the location and movement of all bicycles, each one tagged with the owner's ID?

Can't imagine anyone would object to that smart idea :)

[leke]

Google, Apple, MS et al all track us by our phones and I think you know by now that the NSA, and police can also access that data.

I wouldn't really object if the government knew when I cycled into town, and when I visited friends etc... if it would get my stolen bike back. There could also be a rule that only bikes reported stolen could be logged and alerted, but there could also be benefits if this rule was let slide. For example, popular cycling routes could be studied for prioritising path repairs, or the building of new cycle lanes.

[gambiting]

The problem is that especially inside the EU, bikes are stolen almost in bulk, then loaded into trucks and taken outside the country - even if you get stopped at the border(which is super rare, thanks to the Schoengen zone), it's impossible to check the serial numbers of the bikes - if there are any databases, they are usually not ran by the police, and there are absolutely zero international databases for bikes. Eastern parts of EU are full of German, French, English bikes - where do you think they come from? I bet 90% of them were stolen, and the chance of recovering such bike is zero.

[samastur]

I live in Slovenia which is commonly considered east EU. Guess what, bikes get stolen here as well (not sure I know any cyclist who hasn't had one stolen at some point).

And your 90% estimate is as offensive as wrong.

[morsch]

To put things into perspective, maybe he's right in saying that bikes get moved over the border to facilitate the resale. Your stolen bikes probably end up here in Germany. It's the EU single market. :) On general principle Germany tends to export more than it imports, not sure if that also applies to stolen goods. ;)

I doubt the thieves go to so much trouble, though, I expect my bikes that got stolen -- happened a few times -- ended up resold in the same city or in a neighbouring town. Wouldn't be totally shocked to recognize my own (well, formerly) bike in the local classifieds.

[Piskvorrr]

Yup. Much of the bikes that get stolen around here (Prague, central Europe) are re-sold considerably cheaper at shady shops within the same city. Of course, the statistic comes from bikes which have been recovered; this may significantly skew it.

[gambiting]

I know, because I come from Eastern EU myself. But I can see what the market is like - there is plenty of "imported" German bikes around. And I have trouble believing that Germans are selling nice bikes for close to nothing. And like Morsch said in the comment below - our stolen bikes end up exported to the West, or maybe further to the east. My point is that within the EU it's really easy to move goods across borders,and then they become untraceable.

[jkbyc]

I can assure you that people in eastern Europe, the Czech republic at least, also do complain about having their nice new bikes stolen. Just to put things into perspective, eastern EU is not some wild west.

[digitalengineer]

Agreed, but in Western Europe it is party time for criminals from Eastern Europe. Just read this (left-leaning and pro-european) newspaper article: http://bit.ly/1q6fWur

[lloeki]

In France there's Bicycode. The sole increase in risk of a bike being visibly tagged vs one that is not is enough to make the baddies pick the other one.

Also there are actually two types of bicycle thiefs: organised groups that load them by the truckload and opportunistic folks that know most locks are trivially broken and just want a cheap ride. You'd be surprised how many times I witnessed guys just carelessly dropping "their" bike once arrived.

[0]: http://www.bicycode.org

[blueskin_]

I'm sure the NSA, FBI, etc. would love that.

[annnnd]

Not just bicycles, other sports equipment could be protected by such anti-theft devices (maybe even at the discretion of the owner). Are there any such tracking bugs already on the market?

[ck2]

Do you find police interested at all in helping recover a stolen bike?

Unless you hand them GPS corordinates and a photo of the person taking it, they aren't going to do anything.

[da02]

Just out of curiosity, what town or city do you live in? How many times has it happened to you?

[Cthulhu_]

In the Netherlands / Amsterdam it happens all the time - to be fair, people have adjusted to it, all you see is very cheap old bicycles, and it's not uncommon to just steal someone else's bike if your own gets stolen.

I read a cute news bulletin from the police the other day that they arrested a 60-some year old bike thief using a 'lure bike'. They do that regularly actually: https://www.google.com/search?q=lokfiets+site:politie.nl

Ahem. Anyway, point is, over here we adjusted by not owning expensive bicycles for the daily commute, so that's another way to deal with it.

[rectangletangle]

If anything Amsterdam probably has too many bikes. They're literally covering every surface that you can lock one on to, often several layers deep. They're almost like barnacles there. This is exacerbated by the old infrastructure that isn't quite up to par with cities like Rotterdam.

[digitalengineer]

Well yeah Rotterdam had the heart bombed out of it in WW2. So no more narrow streets downtown.

[lmm]

I live in London and I've had my bike stolen around once a year; four times now. I try to treat it as just a cost of life (the bike is still saving me money compared to train tickets), but it gets to be irritating. I've got a cycling holiday booked next month and I'm terrified my bike's going to be stolen just before I go.

[aphexairlines]

Have you tried a wheel lock? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_lock#Wheel_lock Someone walking around London carrying a bike rather than riding it would look pretty suspicious -- wouldn't police stop someone like that and check the registration sticker?

[lmm]

The first time I just locked the wheel. Every time since I've used more advanced locks. It was never unlocked.

The last time one was stolen the thieves left the back wheel (locked to a stand) behind, unscrewed it and cut through the cable that was holding the frame. AIUI bike theft is mostly organized, they take a whole load and throw them in the back of a van, rather than carrying them around.