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Comment by teekert | Hacker News Reader

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?

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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.

> 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.”

This story is from the UK.

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.

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