The French have made it mandatory to have your bike marked

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byegad

Legendary Member
Location
NE England
As to insurance, British Cycling, Cycling UK and private insurers offer 3rd party cover, I'm currently with an insurance company who offer it for £20 or so per annum. I can't recall off hand if it offers £5000000 or £10000000 cover but either is more than enough.
 

newfhouse

Resolutely on topic
Wouldn't it be a bit of a faff to inform the registration people about selling a bike to a new owner, having to get the new address and details and then updating said details?
Yes. Who would pay for administering the sale and ownership of a bike that may only be worth a tenner?
 

mustang1

Guru
Location
London, UK
And the people that gave us the Maginot Line, now give us what every bike already has...frame numbers!

We've had frame numbers since time immemorial, it's just that practically no one notes them down or records them in an accessible manner - its3 the latter thatnis the problem, not the lack of any identifiable mark or serial number.

Little evidence that marking reduces theft, although it may make reuiniting bikes with their owners easier.

And as for RLJ'ing... the presence of very large, highly visible, reflective number plates does nothing to make car driving RLJ'ers think twice about zipping though, so I can see no reason why cycling road users would be any different because of a small bar code. As it is, if you've committed an offence and fail to identify yourself to an officer when requested they can arrest you and keep you until you are identified, so there is no additional threat of sanction hanging over any naughty people.
+1

And those <strike>pesky</strike> insurance companies... (British Cycling, CTC, and cycling specific companies excepted, I'm talking about larger insurance companies getting in on the act, i just don't trust them).
 

Archie_tect

De Skieven Architek... aka Penfold + Horace
Location
Northumberland
Any identification would be easy to remove or alter so it's doubtful whether it will deter theft or make it easier to return stolen bikes to their owners, even if it is a registration plate which is linked to a database, I can't see any value in doing it.
 
Any identification would be easy to remove or alter so it's doubtful whether it will deter theft or make it easier to return stolen bikes to their owners, even if it is a registration plate which is linked to a database, I can't see any value in doing it.

I wonder about this here: a "mofa" (small motorbike/e-bike) registration plate has to be renewed every year: owners go and buy one from an insurance company and register it, then fit it to their scooter. This means the plates can easily be removed, so I'm not sure in that case what use they will be in the case of theft.
 

Once a Wheeler

…always a wheeler
The Swiss used to have a bicycle number plate system:
569046
The letters indicated the canton and the white-on-red figures gave the year. The individual bike number can just be made out stamped into the bare-metal strip at the bottom of the plate. Most cyclists rivetted it to the rear mudguard; sporting cyclists tended to attach it to the seat bolt or the rear brake bolt. It was compulsory and issued for an annual fee. I think the system included a very basic third-party insurance. Obviously the procedure was deemed more trouble than it was worth as they abandoned it in 1988.

With modern technology, there could perhaps be a good case for an equivalent system.
 
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BoldonLad

Not part of the Elite
Location
South Tyneside
.... what i gathered, it looks like they have to leg display a bar code on the frame which will identify the rightful owner.
I suppose the police could then simply scan the bar code on the bike to ascertain whether the bike is listed as stolen. I suppose bikes could be quickly checked while there locked up at train stations ect to see if they've got some black mark against them.

It may be a suitable way to deter theft, but, I don't see how it is going to identify errant cyclists, is every driver and pedestrian going to carry a barcode scanner on their person? How would you scan the bar code as an errant cyclist sped past you?
 
It may be a suitable way to deter theft, but, I don't see how it is going to identify errant cyclists, is every driver and pedestrian going to carry a barcode scanner on their person? How would you scan the bar code as an errant cyclist sped past you?

Also, anyone other than the police who did such a thing would probably be in breach of a number of data protection rules.
 
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