Comments on Copenhagenize.com - The Copenhagen Bike Culture Blog: Bike Theft Profiteering

erik, i'm not saying people carry hacksaws with th...

2009-11-23T12:23:00.234+01:00

erik, i'm not saying people carry hacksaws with them when out drinking but people do walk around looking for bikes that aren't locked and then nick them.

even the City of Copenhagen will tell you that most thefts are committed by regular citizens who need a bike right then and there.

Mikael: "bikes here are stolen by regular people. ...

2009-11-22T18:26:57.625+01:00

Mikael: "bikes here are stolen by regular people. drunk on their way home on a saturday night, or whatever."

It seems unlikely someone would steal a locked bike just to get home. You need a hacksaw or some way to break the lock. If you're going to do all that, you may as well get a taxi or walk... or bring your own bicycle when you go out.

It's also not unproblematic to keep a stolen bike, because the registry of frame numbers makes it easy for repair shops to identify stolen bikes.

So I don't know... it seems you need to be more motivated than just "drunk on your way home" to steal a locked bike.

sxgps.dk will find your bike with RFID tags.

2009-11-21T15:35:34.047+01:00

sxgps.dk will find your bike with RFID tags.

Insurance profitable!?! No! You're kidding.

2009-11-18T11:17:08.698+01:00

Insurance profitable!?! No! You're kidding.

April- it is unlikely that your home will be destr...

2009-11-17T06:51:32.709+01:00

April- it is unlikely that your home will be destroyed by fire or natural disaster. Every month you pay for your home insurance and do not need to use it is pure profit for the insurance agency. If 100 people sign up for insurance(who had not previously) on their home (bike included) and none of the homes are damaged but 10% of policy owners have a bicycle stolen, the net profit for the insurance company is very high. That is how that works.

Jonathon - nice story, thanks :-) I've taken to s...

2009-11-16T22:51:11.607+01:00

Jonathon - nice story, thanks :-)

I've taken to standing up fallen over bikes here in Melbourne - people tend to use chain or D-locks, and actually lock the bike to something physical, preferably a bike hoop, but often a signpost because all the hoops are taken. Also, a lot of bikes lack kick-stands (mine's got one though, yay!). So, you quite often see chained-to-signpost bikes fallen over, which is bad for everyone - blocks the footpath, probably upsets the cyclist when they get back and find their bike fallen. Picking them up is my way of being nice to a complete stranger (and getting weird looks in the process, although most people smile once they figure out it's not my bike).

Mikael said... april: bikes here are stolen by re...

2009-11-16T21:57:24.462+01:00

Mikael said...
april: bikes here are stolen by regular people. drunk on their way home on a saturday night, or whatever.

____

True. But I just had some friends return from Copenhagen with a very nice story about a couple of local young drunks running for shelter in the pouring rain who actually stopped to pick up fallen bikes and place them safely upright. Chivalry is not dead!

Bikes are covered under household insurance in the...

2009-11-16T20:19:59.935+01:00

Bikes are covered under household insurance in the USA also, though you may need to a rider for your bike if it's worth more than about $1000 or so. In the USA, there's also a hefty deductible that may amount to a significant fraction of the bike's value, and most American policies are not replacement value but "Actual Cash Value" policies.

Reading the other post, I see that the system is p...

2009-11-16T18:33:21.698+01:00

Reading the other post, I see that the system is passive rather than active:

"So... how does it work? If your chip-equipped bicycle gets nicked you do what you'd do anyway. Report it stolen on the police website and inform your insurance company. Easy. If you're taking part in the chip program you can now also report it stolen to the City, on their website.

There is a small army of people walking about the city everyday with the enviable job of irritating motorists. We call them Parking Attendents. :-) They are on the sidewalks of the city writing out parking tickets anyway so they will now be equipped with an RFID scanner so they can walk past parked bicycles, scanning happily as they go.

If their GPS-equipped scanner registers a stolen bicycle, you will immediately recieve an email with a map featuring a red dot where your bicycle was found."

The Parking Attendents aren't seeking out stolen bikes, they are mearly carrying the equipment with them, the rest happens automatically, they don't have to do anything. I think it is an excellent idea, if you bike has just been "borrowed" by someone trying to get home, you then know where to go pick it up.

This is interesting,this Topic came up at a Dublin...

2009-11-16T15:47:16.133+01:00

This is interesting,this Topic came up at a Dublin Cycling Campaign Meeting recently they are interested in something like this being used in Ireland.
I mentioned about Denmark doing a Test of these and putting them in the Reflector. We have a lot of Bicycle Theft lately with Bikes being stolen to Order. But it would have to be hidden away Internally in the Bike. I cannot see the Police being interested in Tracking down Bike Thieves very low down the scales in interest unless they Recover the Bike somewhere Dumped.

april: bikes here are stolen by regular people. dr...

2009-11-16T14:41:37.773+01:00

april: bikes here are stolen by regular people. drunk on their way home on a saturday night, or whatever.

April, I think what Mikael is saying is that the r...

2009-11-16T13:18:03.307+01:00

April, I think what Mikael is saying is that the revenue for new insurance customers is higher than the amount paid out.

e.g. if an insurance company recruits 5000 new household clients paying $500/year for example, it will generate $2.5 million a year in extra revenue.

Let's say 10% of bikes are stolen with an average payout of $670, then it is costing them $335,000, so they are netting $2.165 million/year in addition to making their customers happy by buying them new bikes.

By instilling fear in society that your bike will be stolen, it encourages people (who would otherwise have no insurance) to purchase household insurance plans (especially students) - thus profiting the insurance companies.

Once they get all these new customers, then they can focus on improving their bottom line by mandating specific types of locks for their customers, etc.

British insurance companies will add your bike to ...

2009-11-16T11:42:30.404+01:00

British insurance companies will add your bike to your standard houshold insurance too. My bike had to be put my policy as a "named item" (at no extra cost)and I had to give the frame no. to the company over the phone. If it had been a cheap bike it would've been covered anyway.

But where do all the bikes in CPH go? Is there a big market on ebay in Denmark or lots of shady deals going on "down the market" or in "pub carparks" like in the UK?

Or is it more of a "joy rider" problem - the bikes are nicked for a short ride and then dumped and hence the large numbers recovered by the police? Are there any difference in the numbers stolen between women's bikes and men's?

As for technology I'm not convinced that any small gains in the retreval of bikes wouldn't be soon outweighed by the civil liberties disadvantages that this could ultimately lead to. Unfortunately, history tells us that no matter how benign the intention of the original invention it will always be abused.

I am interested to see that you have about 81030 b...

2009-11-16T11:41:54.609+01:00

I am interested to see that you have about 81030 bikes stolen a year, where do all these bikes end up?

Still it puts the situation here into perspective where in 2006 (the last year I can get figures for) 22211 were stolen. Maybe that is just because we have fewer bikes in circulation.

Either way I am impressed by your police registration scheme and RFID chips scheme, how is that going by the way?

Could you elaborate on the frame number registrati...

2009-11-16T10:44:19.213+01:00

Could you elaborate on the frame number registration? Is it a national database or do you still have to give the number to your insurance company yourself?

hey, mikael: I was really happy to see this artic...

2009-11-16T10:23:57.207+01:00

hey, mikael:

I was really happy to see this article as I've been obsessed with bike theft lately - where are all the bike thieves, for example? With all the bikes stolen in big cities we must pass them several times daily on the street!
I had long suspected that bike theft was not being properly averted by the industries. But I don't see how this article demonstrates that theft pays. Of course it pays for the thieves, but the insurance industry still has to pay out - less than for burglaries, to be sure, but it's still cash out of their pockets. What am I missing?