Cycle Security - Please comment and repost amongst your friends

[ianrauk]

You say Brick Lane has been mentioned? Yes and what is happening about it?
It is widely known as being London's hotspot for stolen bike sales.

Sometimes you get a token old bill wandering up and down the road.
I have seen it happen, the sellers just disappear until token cop is gone.
PCSO's are completely ignored by the sellers.
But more direct action is needed.
It's not hard to nail the sellers & those who buy, they know they are buying stolen goods.
A few undercover cops and you will bag a hatful. Not every now and again but every day until they are stopped.

And you know what, cyclists have been telling this to the police for years and very little is ever done.

 

[fimm]

Well, you've thought about that! That is good! (I should probably do a bit more investigating of the Edinburgh scheme...)

 

[GrumpyGregry]

You say Brick Lane has been mentioned? Yes and what is happening about it?
It is widely known as being London's hotspot for stolen bike sales.

Sometimes you get a token old bill wandering up and down the road.
I have seen it happen, the sellers just disappear until token cop is gone.
PCSO's are completely ignored by the sellers.
But more direct action is needed.
It's not hard to nail the sellers & those who buy, they know they are buying stolen goods.
A few undercover cops and you will bag a hatful. Not every now and again but every day until they are stopped.

And you know what, cyclists have been telling this to the police for years and very little is ever done.

Probably best asked of the Met's finest not Sussex's.....

 

[mossj88]

Hi Chris,

Both BikeRegister and BikeShephard are very good services, I question the validity of tamper proof stickers (just how tamper proof can a sticker be) but it's another hurdle for them to cross so can't be a bad thing.

I do prefer what Leicestershire Police are doing at the minute, as they are exchanging chain locks for D-Locks free of charge, which put up much more of a fight against would be thiefs.

Thanks,
John

P.S I'm concerned that you say the police is unable to search frame numbers country wide... I run stolen bike register website and we do that on a £5 a month server (along with hourly comparisons against what Gumtree/eBay are selling). It doesn't take much to put a database together and query the results, even if there may be tens of thousands of records.

Anyway I put in a FOI request to my local bobbies, and if it's sucessful to the rest of the country for the frame numbers of recovered bikes. So hopefully there will soon be a nationwide search facility available.

P.S.S you can search Immobilise... they just charge you for the pleasure (£3.99)

 

[MissTillyFlop]

Dear all,​

I am a police officer in Sussex, UK and am in the process of setting up an operation to tackle cycle theft. I am looking to canvas your opinions and get some feedback as you are my target audience.​

My operation is designed to mark cycles with an anti tamper tag (with QR code) provided free of charge. We take your details, register your cycle and create your account. All you need to do is report the bike stolen to us and update the database. ​

The aim of this project is to tackle the rising numbers of cycle theft in and around town centre locations and to be able to re unite owners with their cycles in the event of us finding them. At the moment, it is really difficult if not impossible for us to trace the owner of a cycle as most cyclists do not have the all important details - granted those of us who are interested in cycling and have a desire to look after our property will do ! If a recovered cycle is registered - we can identify the owner by scanning the code and making a call to establish its current status.​

The purpose of this post is to generate discussion between cyclists as to which method you would prefer - Bike Shepherd which offers 3 ultra destructible QR tags (which disintegrate into tiny pieces taking a long time to remove) to be placed at various places (overt or covert - you decide) around your cycle as well as the registration to the database, or Bike Register which uses a single tamper proof QR sticker (non disintegrating) which would be better off being overt - as well as registration on the data base. Please look at both www.bikeshepherd.org and www.bikeregister.com to see which fits your needs best. ​

We are planning to offer the services free of charge at various locations across a trial area in West Sussex. If popular and the trial shows a reduction in cycle thefts, I will be looking to roll it out across the rest of the force area. I am keen to get people's views on these two schemes and welcome any feedback from people who have tried either system.​

If you would like to reply - please can you let me know what you would like from such a system i.e. ability to upload photos of your cycle, interactive user account, multiple stickers? Single sticker? No sticker?, etc etc.​

Thanks​

Sergeant Chris Pipkin​

Sussex Police.​

I have had my bikes marked by the police - but it has been done using indelible UV ink and can only be seen under UV light and they were registered with bike register. You can upload photos to bike register and I have done so. It's great considering it's free.

 

[mossj88]

You say Brick Lane has been mentioned? Yes and what is happening about it?
It is widely known as being London's hotspot for stolen bike sales.

Sometimes you get a token old bill wandering up and down the road.
I have seen it happen, the sellers just disappear until token cop is gone.
PCSO's are completely ignored by the sellers.
But more direct action is needed.
It's not hard to nail the sellers & those who buy, they know they are buying stolen goods.
A few undercover cops and you will bag a hatful. Not every now and again but every day until they are stopped.

And you know what, cyclists have been telling this to the police for years and very little is ever done.

Having spoken to the Met Task Force they did exactly this not so long ago, but when they handed the market back to the local council/police it went back to how it was almost overnight... So apparently it's not that simple, you actually have to punish the people selling the bikes (that would be where it went wrong).

 

[jim55]

As the owner of one expensive (and very customised) bike, along with several less valuable ones, I'd definitely go for an option with multiple stickers.
I'd want 1 for the frame, 1 each for the handbuilt wheels, 1 for the Brooks sadddle, maybe 1out of sight under the handlebars too ?
Hopefully 1 out of 5 might come to someone's attention ?
That's if the scheme gets taken up by Hampshire of course.

^^^ this ^^^ its not just frames and forks that bikes get stolen for ,iv heard of bikes being stolen for a certain wheelset or whatever and the frame is secondary ,,its a good idea but i know that a lot of parts on gumtree and ebay and such are not legit ,itd b esse4ntial to stop the trade in dodgy stolen wheels or parts in gen ,what about the smart water marking system that gets used for motorbikes?is there not a version similiar to this that could b used for cycles

 

[Hawk]

So for me, the biggest question is - how can you make sure someone doesn't remove the sticker? As soon as this sticker is removed, the whole database etc that has been set up becomes a bit useless.

I don't know how effective such a scheme would be on that basis - however I welcome this trial.

For me, bike crime will only be reduced if bicycles and components (maybe just bicycles worth over £X and components worth over £Y) were required by law to be sold with paperwork produced by the manufacturers... I don't think many people would buy bikes for £1,000 then 'misplace' such papers. I don't expect this to happen in the near future though

 

[mossj88]

I imagine the police will take the frame number for the database as well, the stickers more for show as it says to a potential thief "this bike is registered beware"

 

[byegad]

Thanks for all your comments.

There are a number of issues that we want to try and address with this scheme - most importantly educating people on the importance of recording their bike's frame number and / or unique identifiers. We see so many people report their bike as stolen and very few (maybe 5%) know their frame numbers making it very difficult if not impossible to identify stolen bikes - some frame numbers are almost impossible to read as mentioned earlier in this thread. If we offer a scheme whereby we mark, register and record peoples frame numbers (as well as this unique identifier) and descriptions of their bike, we are then able to search the national database in the event of finding a marked bike. If it is reported stolen we can check the riders details against those registered on the website and if they don’t match - the rider has some difficult questions to answer.

We can't circulate the frame numbers of stolen bikes to other forces - there are simply too many, which is why we need to have a system whereby owners can flag the bike as stolen, that we can check it in the event of us finding a marked bike. We use the Police National Computer for cars and motorbikes - this is effectively the same for bikes. PNC is invaluable; this has the potential to be the same.

Immobilise.com is a good website, and we would advise people to register their property on it. We are able to search the database; however you have to have a police account in order to do so. By using a scheme as mentioned here - the public can search it as well so they are able to do a history check prior to buying a second hand bike (which is also useful for retailers such as cash converters who are always getting bikes seized by the Police)

I accept that bike theft is treated differently in each Police area - but it is a constant feature across the country. This is a relatively simple way, which does require some buy in by the Police, to reduce the overall amount of theft offences. For this to succeed in the long term, we need to show reductions in theft over the trial period which will in turn make the crime managers who allocate funding take notice. A similar scheme has been adopted by Transport for London and as such attracts a team of around 30 officers dedicated to cycle theft in London - there is no reason that this can't happen in other force areas.

Reduction in theft means a lower crime rate, a lower crime rate improves public confidence, and improved public confidence makes for a happier community which is surely what everyone wants.

Regards
Chris

Sorry Chris. I appreciate you're trying to help here. But what you seem to be saying you'll only attempt to trace a lost bike if:- A) you happen across it.
and
B) It has an extra ID number.

I can't see why the frame number isn't enough. What difference, apart from your willingness to trace the owner will an extra number make?

After all you can keep a data base of all motor vehicles but would only need to record stolen bike frame numbers. Plus a lot of owners of cheaper machines won't even report their loss, so reducing the number of machines you would need to trace. .

 

[400bhp]

Thanks for all your comments.

There are a number of issues that we want to try and address with this scheme - most importantly educating people on the importance of recording their bike's frame number and / or unique identifiers. We see so many people report their bike as stolen and very few (maybe 5%) know their frame numbers making it very difficult if not impossible to identify stolen bikes - some frame numbers are almost impossible to read as mentioned earlier in this thread. If we offer a scheme whereby we mark, register and record peoples frame numbers (as well as this unique identifier) and descriptions of their bike, we are then able to search the national database in the event of finding a marked bike. If it is reported stolen we can check the riders details against those registered on the website and if they don’t match - the rider has some difficult questions to answer.

We can't circulate the frame numbers of stolen bikes to other forces - there are simply too many, which is why we need to have a system whereby owners can flag the bike as stolen, that we can check it in the event of us finding a marked bike. We use the Police National Computer for cars and motorbikes - this is effectively the same for bikes. PNC is invaluable; this has the potential to be the same.

Immobilise.com is a good website, and we would advise people to register their property on it. We are able to search the database; however you have to have a police account in order to do so. By using a scheme as mentioned here - the public can search it as well so they are able to do a history check prior to buying a second hand bike (which is also useful for retailers such as cash converters who are always getting bikes seized by the Police)

I accept that bike theft is treated differently in each Police area - but it is a constant feature across the country. This is a relatively simple way, which does require some buy in by the Police, to reduce the overall amount of theft offences. For this to succeed in the long term, we need to show reductions in theft over the trial period which will in turn make the crime managers who allocate funding take notice. A similar scheme has been adopted by Transport for London and as such attracts a team of around 30 officers dedicated to cycle theft in London - there is no reason that this can't happen in other force areas.

Reduction in theft means a lower crime rate, a lower crime rate improves public confidence, and improved public confidence makes for a happier community which is surely what everyone wants.

Regards
Chris

Why though? A very simple database would do it. Even a spreadsheet.

Not difficult at all.

 

[Inertia]

Why though? A very simple database would do it. Even a spreadsheet.

Not difficult at all.

Aye, I don't understand that either, a database for the stickers would be just as large.

 

[headcoat]

I have both my bike registered with Bike Shepherd with the three stickers on each bike. Not sure it is a deterrent but at least "if" found they can be traced back to me. As long the stickers cannot or aren't removed.

To me this should be taken up by all forces as the infrastructure is there already.

Do all police know to scan the code in though?

 

[mossj88]

I have both my bike registered with Bike Shepherd with the three stickers on each bike. Not sure it is a deterrent but at least "if" found they can be traced back to me. As long the stickers cannot or aren't removed.

To me this should be taken up by all forces as the infrastructure is there already.

Do all police know to scan the code in though?

From what I've heard some police do, some don't the number that goes with the QR code is more useful (the QR is more a gimmic).

I think half the problem is that there is no central place to check frame numbers, meaning if you buy a used bike it's difficult to check, for that reason I'm designing a database with a publicly available API that hopefully I can convince as many registers as possible to use.

I've unbranded it from my own register and the way I plan to sell it is that any register that uses it will get equal advertising space on it.

 

[david k]

In my opinion, as a cyclist who lives in a community which tags bikes using a similar system to 'Bike Register', bike theft will only be reduced by such tags if police treat bike theft seriously. In my experience, stolen bikes only get back to their rightful owners when observant citizens see them being offered for sale. I'm sorry to say it, but police, in my experience, regard bikes not as vehicles, but as toys, and therefore couldn't give a toss about bike theft. I don't see the existence of a tag, visible or tamper-proof, as being likely to change that attitude.

maybe its because it will be difficult to tell if it someones bike or not, with it being tagged this process will be easier and maybe the police will be more inclined to help