
Rise in Google bikes stolen, dumped in Mountain View creek has locals annoyed - MilnerRoute
http://www.sfgate.com/technology/article/Stolen-Google-campus-bikes-dumped-Stevens-Creek-11300733.php
======
nkurz
From the article:

"According to the Mountain View Voice and NBC Bay Area, some Peninsula
residents are annoyed by the increase in dumping, in part because they say
Google isn't working harder to prevent the bikes from being stolen in the
first place."

"The root of the problem, as Wired wrote in 2013, is that the bikes are not
locked or tracked, leaving them vulnerable to theft."

Are there many people outside the Bay Area who would agree that the "root
problem" is with Google failing to adequately protect their property? Am I
wrong to think that the real root is the thieves who are stealing the bicycles
with apparent impunity, and not with the owners of the bikes?

As a transplant to California from a part of the US with stricter standards
regarding property crime, I can't help but think that the apparent official
tolerance of theft and common "blame the victim" attitude contributes
significantly to the high rate of property crimes.

"Why Can't San Francisco Stop Its Epidemic of Window Smashing?"
[https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/04/san-
fra...](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/04/san-francisco-
crime-policy/479880/)

"Why Oakland Police Can't Solve Crime"
[https://www.eastbayexpress.com/oakland/why-oakland-police-
ca...](https://www.eastbayexpress.com/oakland/why-oakland-police-cant-solve-
crime/Content?oid=4288948)

~~~
vanderZwan
Why think in either-or terms? Yes, something should be done about the thieves.
But imagine leaving a car unlocked and ready to go. How would you feel about
the situation then?

Personally, as a Dutchman I find the idea of not having at least two locks on
your bikes (preferably different brands, our thieves tend to specialise)
absurd.

~~~
nkurz
_Why think in either-or terms?_

It's not either-or, but my question here concerns the societal attitudes
toward theft and their effect on its prevalence, not the practicalities of
reducing the risk of theft.

 _But imagine leaving a car unlocked and ready to go. How would you feel about
the situation then?_

I'd feel exactly the same. There are still many parts of the US where cars are
regularly left unlocked, often enough with the key in the ignition if it's
somewhere considered safe like a private driveway. Where I grew up in rural
Wisconsin (northern USA) the joke was that you only needed to lock your car in
the late autumn, because if you didn't someone might fill it with unwanted
zucchini. Inspired by this joke, I filled several teachers' cars with squash
after the first frost.

In these same areas, it's also the case that many houses are rarely if ever
locked. I don't think I've ever saw a key for the house I grew up in, and I'm
certain I never had one for myself. In the same way that coins in a blind
man's cup are not considered OK to steal just because he is not able to defend
himself well, having an unlocked house or car is not considered to be granting
permission to thieves. Transgression is viewed very negatively even if the
level of difficulty is low.

Tying this back to hacking, In 1990, Harper's Magazine published a seminal
roundtable article titled "Is Computer Hacking a Crime?"
([http://www.textfiles.com/news/hackers.txt](http://www.textfiles.com/news/hackers.txt)).
In it, John Perry Barlow makes this comment:

"BARLOW [Day 2. 10:41 P.M.]: I live in a small town. I don't have a key to my
house. Am I asking for it? I think not. Among the juvenile delinquents in my
town, there does exist a vandal's ethic. I know because I once was one. In a
real community, part of a kid's rite of passage is discovering what walls can
be breached. Driving 110 miles per hour on Main Street is a common symptom of
rural adolescence, publicly denounced but privately understood. Many teenagers
die in this quest-two just the night before last-but it is basic to our
culture. Even rebellious kids understand that risk to one's safety is one
thing, wanton vandalism or theft is another. As a result, almost no one locks
anything here. In fact, a security system is an affront to a teenage psyche.
While a kid might be dissuaded by conscience, he will regard a barricade as an
insult and a challenge."

My point isn't that there is one right approach, but that there is an
interplay between attitudes and actions. Is it possible for cars and houses to
be left unlocked just because it is currently a low-crime area, or might the
fact that cars and houses are unlocked --- combined with a lack of tolerance
for crime --- help to keep these as low-crime areas where such an approach is
possible?

~~~
vanderZwan
I understand where you are coming from, but:

> _BARLOW [Day 2. 10:41 P.M.]: I live in a small town._

This is the key element here. In a small town, the tight social connections
take care of this issue. I know because I grew up in one, just like you. We
also did not lock our doors, nor our bikes for that matter. I even forgot my
bike in town once as a kid, just before we went on holiday for two weeks, and
when we came back my bike was on our driveway with a note from the butcher
saying "Hey, you forgot your bike" \- he apparently asked around and some
people recognised it was my bike. That's how tight the social network is
(which also has it's downsides, but that's another discussion).

But the Google Campus is _not_ a small town, and arguably one of the
fundamental aspect of being a large city is that many socially disconnected
people live in the same space. And in that situation, you need a lock.

Our village started locking its doors because criminals from a nearby city
realised that we didn't. Our area is very sparsely populated, so we don't have
a large police force; just one or two vehicles. During work hours, when many
people are at work, they would commit a distraction crime in one village, then
rob a bunch of houses in another knowing the police was away.

Of course we should get those thieves behind bars, but at the same time: not
locking the door leaves you vulnerable to anyone outside of the community who
comes up with the same idea. And in a city, with it's many sub-societies
stacked upon another, people like that _will_ exist.

~~~
euyyn
> But the Google Campus is not a small town, and arguably one of the
> fundamental aspect of being a large city

Have you been to Mountain View, and to the Google campus? :) It takes
resolution to walk to the Googleplex, grab a bike, and ride it all the way
back. Even if the campus were in the middle of Mountain View, it's definitely
not a large city.

~~~
vanderZwan
That's fair, I don't really know anything about the campus, but I'm pretty
sure the area still beats my old village of 1500 people in total :P

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trophycase
I honestly don't mind when I see a homeless person riding the bike. I
guarantee they are getting far more utility out of it than any Google employee
is, property rights be damned.

~~~
mliker
Stealing is stealing. There is no excuse for it despite your "utility" excuse.

~~~
URSpider94
In most jurisdictions, you'd have a very hard time prosecuting this as theft.
The bikes are often left tipped over on the sidewalk, here and there around
town. At most, under the law, you are probably "borrowing without permission."
People (even homeless people) don't usually keep the bikes, they just dump
them off somewhere in Mountain View or Sunnyvale, where either someone else
picks them up and rides them or someone calls Google to come get them.

------
mtl_usr
Doesn't seem very different than the Google Bus vandalism that was in the news
a few years ago. Some people want Google to look bad for whatever reasons.

It sounds like these people know that recovering the bikes will cost Google
money and that their public image will be impacted by having their Google
branded property littered in wooded areas.

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wand3r
I'm no Google fan, but blaming them because someone stole their property and
threw it in a river is insane.

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URSpider94
Honestly, I'm not sure everyone in the area even knows they belong to Google.
Two or three of my co-workers (not at Google) show up on them for work every
morning, and ride them back to the light rail every evening. I expect they
just think they are community free bikes ...

~~~
euyyn
That I understand, but those two bikes weren't placed in the station by
Google. Someone stole them originally and left them there.

~~~
URSpider94
Not true, actually. The Google Tech Corners office in Sunnyvale sits directly
adjacent to a light rail stop.

~~~
euyyn
Google absolutely wouldn't place bikes in the light rail station. I can
imagine employees leaving them there, but it'd go against company policy.

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saagarjha
I'm curious: why would anyone steal such an conspicuous bike? It's really hard
to pass one of these off as your own when riding it.

------
_e
If google adds tracking devices to the bikes then people are going to complain
about privacy.

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JCharante
What is up with all the blame on Google? Just because they have money doesn't
mean it's okay to victim blame them. Don't blame Google for getting their
bikes stolen, blame the people who are stealing them.

------
DrScump
(features _two_ auto-start video ads)

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johnsmith21006
What is wrong wth people?

