Hacker News Reader

Comment by pringk02 | Hacker News Reader

Sounds like the primary worry is having their bike or other gear stolen, which is reasonable I think. If you can't earn without those things, then you won't want to risk them.

The solution seems to be either to get customers to come down, or to eliminate crime. I'd take a guess that having customers come down is a quicker and cheaper solution to implement.

View on HN

Another solution is having a proper bicycle lock. Yes, they’re heavy but I bike around with Kryptonites largest and thickest U-lock, as well as sometimes with a 25-lb 18mm motorcycle chain for the bicycle.

I do think the food delivery model should only work for customers willing to pay delivery people $25+/hr, especially considering you’re not just paying what should be a living wage for labor but also renting the capital that the delivery person brings to the job (car, bicycle, locks, etc)

No lock can withstand a determined thief.

But there are locks that can withstand a determined thief who has a budget lower than the value of the bike for a few minutes.

Would these locks actually cost less than the bike itself?

I usually spend more on my lock and chains than I do on my bicycle. The bicycle may only cost $100-300 but I don’t have to buy it 4+ times if it’s never stolen.

If you're paid per delivery, then you don't want to faff about wasting time locking and unlocking a bike every single time

And if you're a thief (not all thieves are just random people walking by) you will KNOW that someone who just jumped off a bike and locked it will not be back for a certain time, and tossing the bike into a truck, lock and all, could be a moment's time.

So now you need to lock it to something, causing even more time lost.

That's what I did when I did bicycle deliveries. Yes it was a pain, but I considered it part of the job. But I was working for an individual pizza shop which did a good job making the job worthwhile overall and paid me well enough for my time and this sort of "extra effort".

And you likely had "downtime" when waiting at the shop for an order to deliver; these delivery people are often servicing an almost infinite number of orders and shops, and the next order is just an app click away.

Sort of. I'd help out around the pizza shop if there wasn't a bicycle delivery to be done. I could handle any of the other positions in the shop as well. But yes, there was generally plenty of downtime, other than maybe a 2-4 hour super rush period around lunch or dinner some days.

Much of the current "labor complaints" in general come from the maximization that doesn't "exist on paper" - jobs often involved "downtime" (even if you have slogans like "if you can lean, you can clean") and a few hours each day of absolute panic crunch-time.

Now we're becoming quite capable of optimizing it so that the panic crunch-time is the entire shift (and if it isn't you make less than minimum wage) via these "Silicon Valley gig apps".

Now imagine the pizza shop put you in a race with another delivery driver, and the loser was going to be banned from delivering and making that extra money.

Because that's the reality these delivery apps set up.

Isn't this the plot of Snow Crash?

Yeah, these gig workers need to be paid enough to cover the time for faffing about with locks that are large enough to deter thieves for 10 minutes or so. I doubt they are, which drives these conflicts.

The problem is more than just payment, but the worker competition dynamic the apps are built around. It doesn't matter if you are paid handsomely per order delivered, including ample time and effort to properly lock everything up or truly do anything the customer wants and is willing to tip for, as long as the company pushes more orders to the people delivering faster, it will force a race to the bottom in service quality.

Kryptonites largest and thickest U-lock gives way to a battery powered angle grinder in about 2 minutes.

I didn’t realize that. Thought it was 5-10 minutes. Thanks. Sounds like the bicycle delivery system is fundamentally broken then.

True but, angle grinders make a lot if noise and very conspicuous sparks. Of course thieves will still do it if they can get away with it, but it’s not a very quick or stealthy method.

Picking the lock, in the other hand, is pretty fast and won’t attract much attention. Thief just needs to be sophisticated enough to have the correct picking tool and practice with it a bit.

> I bike around with Kryptonites largest and thickest U-lock

Oh you might want to visit the Lock Picking Lawyer’s YouTube channel today… he’s tested all the U-locks and picks them open in 30-60 seconds.

https://youtu.be/fckVKa4K4Ps?si=Rwujt_k-QF-QYs4w

https://youtu.be/jZtNEC1uGg4?si=KMZJnogntWmMB_fA

I do follow LPL, love the channel. I’ve never been worried about bike thieves picking locks, I’ve never seen or heard of them doing that. I’ve only seen/heard of them them using destructive methods, typically bolt cutters.

If the average bike thief gets as good at picking locks at LPL, we’re very screwed!

I haven't heard of this being common (sorta surprisingly), but you can get a battery angle grinder for $40 these days and it'll go through literally any bike lock that exists in seconds.

Maybe it's not common because it is VERY loud and sparkly.

I feel like it would be pretty tricky on an 18-22mm thick chain without clamping them in some kind of vice. These are nearly impractically heavy (30-40 lbs for a 6' chain), but I have carried them around on my bike sometimes, and will often keep one at the rack at work and one on the rack at home, and haven't seen anyone try to get into them.

I think if a chain that thick wobbles it would just break the angle grinder blade?

They already have to deal with crime at the other end - it's not uncommon, where I live, to see videos of people stealing scooters and bikes as the rider steps into a restaurant.

The least customers could do is to take care of their end.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com