Man convicted after mother of bike theft victim holds protest outside his house | Hacker News Reader

Man convicted after mother of bike theft victim holds protest outside his house

road.cc

57 pointsmellosouls48 comments

This reminds me of the time when I had first moved to a small midwest college town with just my bike and a '93 geo metro half full of belongings. I spent the night at a friend's apartment with my nice (for me) mountain bike locked up at the bike rack. My mistake was in only locking up the frame; in the morning, both wheels (with expensive at the time disc brakes) were missing. First thing I did when the local bike shop opened was take my wheel-less frame there to see about getting new wheels.

On my way into the shop a dude approaches me and tells me that he "borrowed" my wheels and that they are in the shop. What? I'm confused. I enter the shop and sure enough, there are my wheels! But wait, the shop clerk says. How do you know these are your wheels? Because, good sir, this bike thief right next to me admitted as much just now! See him nod! Yes, he stole those wheels from this bike! No, says the shopkeeper; you must be mistaken; that good fellow right there sold me these nice-ish wheels for a really good price; how could they be yours?

Aghast, infuriated, I left. Fuming. Why didn't I call the cops? Why didn't I firebomb this chop shop and leave it a smoking ruin, a warning to all future bike thieves and their accomplices? Alas, this was nearly half my life ago. Life goes on.

> because they are not major crimes

I don't understand this police attitude. A £600 bike is worth as much as a £600 diamond. But cops will definitely go after diamond thieves.

I reported a £2,000 ebike stolen; it had a GPS tracker, so I could locate the thing to a specific address. Their reply: "We will not be visiting the address. Do you know how many Ferraris are stolen in Birmingham every week?"

So because I can't afford a Ferrari, the cops won't even try to recover my transport.

A cheap bike is probably more valuable to a bike owner than a Ferrari is to a Ferrari owner; the Ferrari owner can just switch to driving around in his Lotus.

Yeah, it's frustrating because the monetary value of the object is not what determines whether the crime is major.

If I can't have a decent bike at all because it will be stolen like clockwork, the fact that I would lose a few hundred quid isn't the relevant aspect, it's that I'm forced into a degenerate way of being.

I would estimate a grand total of zero Ferraris are stolen in a median week in Birmingham so go and get this man's bike back.

If you could affor a Ferrari, why would you live in Birmingham? ;0)

great question

How is that relevant?

Bike thefts help reinforce the idea that the police need additional funding. Solving bike thefts does not.

One could equally argue that diamond thefts or Ferrari thefts help reinforce that idea, and that solving them doesn't. So I don't buy that explanation.

Someone commented that the police think bikes are basically toys. I think that's closer; cops like powerful cars, utility-belts stuffed with nightsticks, handcuffs and tasers, and other "manly" metal shit. Bikes are for children, and for drug-dealers escaping down alleyways.

I'm sure that a bike stolen from a large chain store would be investigated before a bike stolen from a member of the public would.

I had this really nice bike once. Bought it in Japan, shipped it home — it really meant a lot to me.

It was chained to the back of our camper, as we toured the country living on the road. My now deceased dog and I put a lot of miles on that bike across the USA, him running alongside bursting with joy.

It was 2017, and we were camped in Santa Paula. Dec. 4th the Thomas Fire exploded as the largest wildfire in California. We had to evacuate for over a month. They let us into the area after 2-weeks to get some belongings.

Bike thieves had come through and stolen everyone’s bikes. Someone took advantage of a catastrophe to steal one of my most precious belongings…

I have zero sympathy for bike thieves. One of the lowest things you can do is steal someone’s bike.

(Edit: profanity removed after calming down)

> Someone took advantage of a catastrophe to steal one of my most precious belongings…

This is the type of stuff that one would expect to happen centuries ago, like piracy, only to find out it's still alive and kicking. Quoting from chapter XIX of "Les Misérables" (1862):

> Every army has a rear-guard, and it is that which must be blamed. Bat-like creatures, half brigands and lackeys; all the sorts of vespertillos that that twilight called war engenders; wearers of uniforms, who take no part in the fighting; pretended invalids; formidable limpers; interloping sutlers, trotting along in little carts, sometimes accompanied by their wives, and stealing things which they sell again; beggars offering themselves as guides to officers; soldiers’ servants; marauders; armies on the march in days gone by,—we are not speaking of the present,—dragged all this behind them, so that in the special language they are called “stragglers.” No army, no nation, was responsible for those beings; they spoke Italian and followed the Germans, then spoke French and followed the English. (...)

> Nevertheless, on the night from the 18th to the 19th of June, the dead were robbed. Wellington was rigid; he gave orders that any one caught in the act should be shot; but rapine is tenacious. The marauders stole in one corner of the battlefield while others were being shot in another.

There was a wave of rapes in areas the Red Army liberated from the Germans. The frontoviki where allegedly fine, but those who followed were looting and raping their way through.

I find it interesting how legislation is used to effect privileged classes of transportation and transportation owners.

Stealing is a crime almost everywhere, but in the old west, horse theft was a hanging crime. Similarly, motor vehicle theft carries a more severe penalty than stealing a bicycle of equivalent value.

The shoes remain as mismatched when they swap feet: Killing someone with a motor vehicle, sober or drunk, typically carries less severe consequences than doing it with your bare hands.

Yeah. There's a reason for the "Death to bike thieves" slogan.

Good for this person. Hopefully more will be done in the future to treat bikes as first class assets by the police.

There's a good youtube channel called 'Shifter' that talks about a lot of these issues. Here's one good vid. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJjnsHif2EQ

Generally cops and politicians think of bikes like toys for kids. Whereas the car replaced horses and stealing horses used to be a capital offense.

Sure, cops rarely do anything for a stolen bike, but cops also rarely do anything for a stolen car too.

It seems across the western world, quality of life crimes are ignored by police and prosecutors. I, too, do not own a vehicle and depend on my bicycle. If it were stolen I would be quite put out as any person would if their vehicle were taken.

The police serve the business class, and otherwise don't tend to do much. They're mostly interested in maintaining a sense of "peace" rather than solving crimes and guaranteeing safety.

Public shaming like this seems great. Admittedly, I'd be nervous to perform a stunt like this in the United States because I'm afraid the thief would have a gun. Or that the police would show up to the scene, get hyped up and confused, and shoot me for some reason.

In the US, you could just bring your own gun, or even an assault rifle! That would likely get the police attention faster than a sign. Though the neighbors would probably chase you off.

I would love to buy a nice bike, but I can’t fork out any more than $200 for something that I know will be stolen almost surely with probability 1 as time goes on.

The solution for rampant petty crime should be to increase its penalty.

Make stealing a bike equivalent penalty to stealing a car.

There are so many bikes unlocked or locked with just a cable lock, that it is unlikely that a thief will take the time and risk to cut a quality U lock or chain lock.

And how has the penalty for stealing a car done to stop car theft?

I bought a used carbon frame racing bike 10 years ago for $400 and have had zero issues with theft. If it were stolen tomorrow I’d still have gotten very good value from it ($40 a year).

I live in NYC.

Take care to leave it in high-traffic places during the day (where a bike theft would be obvious), and in your home at night, and you should be fine.

This is solid advice. I also live in NYC, and the only time (so far) I've had a bike stolen was actually from my building's basement bike storage room over the winter (that I was paying $15/mo to use). When you think about it, this is a bad way to store your bike...lots of people have access, but it's rarely occupied by more than one person at a time, and of course the cameras either don't work or the recordings last a short while.

The Japanese approach is best. Every bike registered with the authorities.

Don't own the bike?

You are in trouble.

Hence nobody in Japan needs to lock their bikes with D-Locks galore.

It is a solved problem.

The D-Locks are a pretty good second-best option, though.

They are hugely overrated. Most people nicking bikes use angle grinders and to an angle grinder all locks are the same: less than 30 seconds of cutting.

https://calpaterson.com/bicycle-threat-model.html

They seem to be pretty effective when it comes to leaving a bike in busy area in broad daylight. My anecdata is that the only time my bike was stolen was when I failed to use the D-lock right (just locked the wheel, oops) whereas the properly-locked bikes around me were all still there.

Leaving it overnight or somewhere out of the way, though... yeah, a different story. Threat model, as you described.

Yes, I think this is true.

Also factor in the age and value of the bike. You can further reduce the chances of your bike being stolen by custom-painting it.

I get that it happens, but it's pretty shocking to me that people can get away with angle grinding a lock off in broad daylight.

I used to work on the opposite side of the road to the police station and I would D-Lock my bike to the railings immediately in front of the door of the police department (literally 3ft from the door).

I come out of work and my bike is gone. There is a piece of the lock on the ground and you can see they used an angle grinder to cut it. I took the piece inside to the desk and showed the officer who took my report and agreed it was definitely an angle grinder.

AN ANGLE GRINDER AT THE LITERAL DOOR OF THE POLICE DEPARTMENT. WTF.

I got a call from the cops three days later. Apparently a cop did see dude grinding my lock off and stopped him as he was leaving and grabbed my bike and put it in storage at the police department. There was just a communication breakdown.

So, happy ending. But still, WTF?

There are at least two u-locks out there which have a reasonable amount of angle grinder resistance now. Hiplok's D1000 and The Litelok X3.

When/how do they check bike ownership?

I don't know too much about the subject. Japan is low crime compared to the West and that is a cultural difference. There are still thieves, and the bicycle is always what thieves want because it has utility. If you steal a bike you can ride it, you haven't got to 'fence' it (sell it to buy drugs).

The benefit of having a police register of bicycles is that it can be checked. Therefore, if someone gets caught for some crime, the bike ownership can be checked.

I don't think they have checkpoints to catch people on stolen bikes, so, if you have a 'second hand bike' (someone else's stolen pride and joy), then you can keep riding it so long as you don't get caught or in an accident. Much like in the olden days before ANPR you could drive a stolen car without expectation of getting caught.

They don't have checkpoints but they have little police stations every few blocks; so they are acutely aware of what's going on and who's now got a bike that he didn't have yesterday.

It's expensive, and someone might argue it's oppressive to have police so close at all times, but it's a key element of Japanese policing - and the low rate of crime in the country is definitely affected (somehow) by such policing.

When you buy a bike or when the police stop someone on a bike.

In many countries, cars have to be registered with the authorities. Yet, they get stolen.

I suspect Japanese culture, in general, and the fact that Japan is an insular nation play a role, too.

Also, a few Google searches give me the impression the problem isn’t solved at all. Registering bicycles doesn’t do much against stealing bicycles for parts, for example.

in germany and austria you can register the bike's serial number or get a number assigned and engraved into the frame. there are different private organizations that do this, but that's enough to verify ownership.

not really a solved problem though because when your bike gets stolen you still have to find it. it only helps when you actually do find it.

If we must have rage bait on this topic let's at least go with the classic film; it's hardly a new phenomenon:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_Thieves

I feel like this is a true American story. Imagine someone’s car being stolen like this, it would be completely different. In countries where bikes are primary means of transportation this would never happen like this. But somehow, in the US, bikes and people on bikes are distinct from the car driving population and are always seen as a bit of a nuisance. Am I wrong?

This story is from the UK.

> In countries where bikes are primary means of transportation this would never happen like this. […] Am I wrong?

Yes. https://www.dutchnews.nl/2022/07/police-have-no-time-for-sto...:

“Last year, 32,000 cases were stopped prematurely because there was not enough manpower to bring them to a conclusion while 26,000 were not looked into at all, police figures requested by NOS showed.”

Here in Colombia bikes are a primary means of transportation and, as you can imagine, bike theft is a big deal. People even kill cyclists to steal their bikes. Just around two months ago a humble young man who worked at security was killed so thieves could steal his bike, about two kilometers from where I live, on a path I used to cycle when I went to uni to study or work.

On top of that the inaction of the police and justice system about bike theft is notorious. Even their inaction about people killing cyclists is notorious - the driver who killed this person throwing him off of a bridge is free (!):

https://youtube.com/watch?v=jRtZyCiPtSM (in spanish)

So much for what our major wants to call "the world capital of bicycles"

You are wrong, because it happened in Britain (about seven miles from where I live, in fact).

Witney is a medium-sized town near Oxford. Oxford is the absolute bike theft capital of Britain. I once emerged from a pub to find someone had bolt-cuttered my lock and was walking up the street with my bike. (I got it back.) You can put a £1.50 consumable bike light on the back of your bike in Oxford and someone will nick it.

Thames Valley Police don't give a crap about bike theft, but to be fair, they don't really give a crap about anything IME. I don't think they're singling out cyclists, they're just institutionally incompetent.

The rumour was that there was an organised gang who would load a van up with stolen bikes in Oxford, drive to Cambridge, sell them to students there, then steal a load of bikes in Cambridge to sell in Oxford.

At one point IIRC Peas Hill in Cambridge, a short street near the market square with a lot of bike racks, had more crimes recorded than any other street in the country- almost all bike thefts.

The US has a very large bike riding community and a very robust bike stealing crime rings. They steal them in one area and sell them in another or to bike shops who turn a blind eye. Plenty of people rely on bicycles to get to work or get groceries. It just doesn't seem so because the country is very large and in some areas the weather or terrain is just not practical.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com