The Bike Index: Let's Stop Bike Theft, Together | Hacker News Reader

The Bike Index: Let's Stop Bike Theft, Together

kickstarter.com

13 pointsdsego18 comments

Ugh. So many problems:

1. It's a violation of "Kickstarter cannot be used to fund e-commerce, business, and social networking websites or apps."

2. This is a website, right? Then why: "Travel to the eleven biggest bike cities in the United States to meet with shop owners and give them the ability to register bikes for free (the cities: NYC, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, Philadelphia, Madison, Tucson, Austin, Denver, D.C., and Minneapolis)."

(Awesome, let's use Kickstarter to pay for me/us to take a trip through the US "to meet with bike shop owners and give them a chance to use the website"...)

3. "Offer region specific recommendations for reporting bike theft to the police." - so an extended goal of this site is to "recommend how to report to the police, customized for regions"?!?

4. Some stickers.

5. Oh, and you have to pay to register with the Index.

And they seriously want $50K for this? Sorry for the cynicism... but this is a website, some stickers, and a tour of the US for the founders.

One part of me wants to say "yep, looks like a bogus project" since when I do a search for 'serial number' on that page, it shows f--k all. On the other hand, I have personally known both a lot of people who lost bikes, and a lot of people who bought random bikes off craigslist (which might or might not have been stolen). If this site really takes off, "check the serial before buying" might actually become a thing.

As you said, the "Travel to the biggest cities in the US (not even the biggest cycling cities)", part does look a bit extravagant. However, actually trying to have such a website is not a bad goal (even if you don't give them $50k for it). A lot of the problems with existing bike registries and registration programs pointed out in the pitch are pretty spot on.

I think some of your points raise legitimate concerns. 5. is wrong though, out of curiosity I googled the site, and registered my bike -- and no payment was required. Where did you get the information that it would be paying? Is that after the kickstarter is funded?

Registration of all new bikes is probably a good way of solving the problem once and for all, although I'm dubious it would work correctly without the legislator involved, and you don't want to involve the legislator, because it wouldn't be free.

Their Rewards structure hints at point 5: "$60: Free bike registrations forever".

The first 10,000 bikes will be free, and we may make registration free/cheaper in general, but we want to make sure that bike shops are able to offer something of value to their customers.

I honestly fail to see how this is supposed to stop bike theft.

Throughout my life I've had around 7 bikes stolen and it would be delusional for me to be thinking of ever getting them back. I once saw a guy with one of my bikes (a few years later after it was stolen) and I did nothing bc what could you possibly do? I didn't had proof of ownership and the guy most probably bought it so from his pov he was the owner and had the right to use their bike.

The thing is, how would having my bikes indexed would've help?

It wont be hard for the thief to remove the stickers and sand out the serial numbers. Also I don't think the next owner would care about the previous owner of the bike, if they would they wont be looking for 'cheap bikes' on craigslist which are obviousky stolen; and also, implying the average joe would know that bikeindex.org exists...

Maybe I'm missing something but for the moment I just feel that $50K for stickers is too much...

We want average joe to know that bikeindex.org exists and we want to give people a way to prove they aren't selling stolen bikes.

If you had indexed the bike you would have proof of ownership.

While you're waiting for this kickstarter to be funded, you can just tweet a picture of your bike: https://twitter.com/ceequof/status/372166690273898496

(And since google doesn't appear to have indexed that serial number, a vanilla html page: https://bbot.org/bike )

sharing on a G+ community would have done the trick

A better idea would be something like LoJack for a bicycle that fits in the stem underneath the seat. It would transmit on a frequency which can be picked up by the police and in theory you should be able to get your bike back fairly quickly. Alternatively, it could have a cel connection (like whispernet for a Kindle), and any time it picks up a frequency it could send out its GPS coordinates or triangulates itself.

Either way, technology is the solution, not registering your bicycle. Most cities have registered bikes for years (in Palo Alto I believe there is still a law on the books making it mandatory, but it's never enforced), and very few bikes ever get recovered. You're better of perusing Craig's List to wait for someone trying to sell your bike and just go and steal it back.

In a world without paint, metal files, sandpaper, grinding discs, tape, interchangeable bike parts, semi-smart bike thieves, etc...this would make sense.

/u/Patrick_Devine is spot on and the best place to test this concept would be the bike theft capital of the world: Amsterdam

In Japan, police forces people register that. If you ride on a bike without registration, police would stop you (precisely speaking, stop everyone "looks" bad then check) and check the record if it was stolen.

I wish startups would stop using the 'save the world' mantra and lose the 'awesome' descriptor. It's not professional.

I get the feeling this is going to become a a comprehensive registry of stolen bicycles.

I don't even know why people pledged over $11000 for this. It will fail, and hard.

There's a government website that does this in the UK. immobilise.com.

If there isn't something like this in the US then it's a great idea but I'm reluctant to believe that a commercial venture is the best way to build it.

Lol, bike theft is notoriously ignored by LEOs. Less than $500 value items usually, which barely pays for the salaries and doesn't pay for gas, food, equipment, or repairs/health.

Besides, you can just shell out $100 for a shitty bike while you save up for your next one to get stolen. Here's an idea! Just buy a stolen bike.

what a great idea, i like it

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