
What Happens to Stolen Bicycles? - rohin
http://blog.priceonomics.com/post/30393216796/what-happens-to-stolen-bicycles
======
frankus
Bike theft seems like one of those quality-of-life crimes (like graffiti and
coercive squeegee-monkeys) that's begging for some kind of creative
enforcement strategy.

\- If there's an open-air bike market at 7th and Market, it seems like you
could use some of the same strategies that have been used to shut down open-
air drug markets.

\- Police in the greater Vancouver area have had a lot of success with bait
cars, but I'm not aware of bait bikes being used more than experimentally (cf.
tocatchabiketheif.com)

\- If one could devise a concentrated enforcement strategy, one might not need
to "take six guys off a murder" for very long. Basically the idea would be to
tip a high-crime-low-probability-of-punishment equilibrium and into a low-
crime-high-probability-of-punishment equilibrium that should presumably remain
equally stable. One approach would be to target a geographic area and
communicate (and follow through on) a threat to throw the book at anyone
caught stealing a bike.

(pretty much all of these are stolen from the book When Brute Force Fails).

~~~
DannoHung
How about a pressurized U-lock that releases a neon-pink paint cloud if the
cylinder or restraining bar is cut-through?

I guess the trick would be making it get on the thief and all over the
bicycle.

The best would be if it also stank to high heaven.

~~~
buffportion
That's great, until you lose your key

~~~
roguecoder
That's a problem with cars right now. The combination of a wallet key, a spare
at home and always being able to go back to the dealer make it not-that-big-a-
deal, in my experience.

~~~
_delirium
With bikes, at the moment, it seems to be a significant problem: there are a
_ton_ of bikes in Copenhagen that end up stuck somewhere because the owner
lost the key or forgot the combination. Sometimes the owners get a bolt cutter
and cut the lock off; other times the police eventually show up to an area
that's getting full of abandoned bikes, cut all the locks (after tagging them
for a few weeks, which basically declares open season for anyone else too),
and haul out a whole set of bikes. I'm not sure the economics work out for it
to be worth doing the equivalent of going back to a car dealer for a new set
of keys, when just buying another used bike costs $150-300. A car's worth
doing it for because it's expensive, so even a dealer charging you $200 is
worth it. But with bikes, even with the current economics many people don't
bother: figuring out how to cut a U-Lock is more hassle than buying another
cheap bike, and not much cheaper.

------
greggman
When I was a kid (GET OFF MY LAWN!!!)

We used to be able to register our bikes with the police department. They'd
stamp a registration number onto the frame of the bike using lettered taps and
a hammer. The only way to take off the registration is to either file it down
or cover it over, in either case a clear indication the bike is stolen.

I got a bike stolen 3 times. Twice I got one back when the police found it
(once the bike had upgrades too. Better front fork, better grips and 2nd rider
peddels had been added)

Anyway, I'm sure someone will cite "budget cuts" but I certainly wish they
still registered bikes. It seems like in a city like SF there are enough
cyclists, revenues from registering the bikes could pay for a few bike police.

~~~
ramchip
That's still how they do it in Japan. Registration is mandatory for all
bicycles. From what I hear you need to bring proof when there's a transfer of
ownership, etc.

~~~
evoxed
Yep. The only downside is that if a policeman is in a bad mood you may get
stopped and checked to make sure you aren't a thief. Only heard of it
happening to foreigners (not myself though) but it's a good idea to keep a
card in your wallet or a photo of your registration (which is actually a
really good idea for anyone traveling/living abroad: if you can keep them in a
safe/encrypted place, carrying a photo of your passport, gaijin card, etc. is
a pretty good idea in case you put on the wrong pants one day).

~~~
fchollet
I'm in Tokyo and I got stopped twice by police officers wanting to check my
bike, on a 3 month period (I do 2 rides of 30 mins a day). For basically no
reason (other than being a foreigner in a country where the police is racist?)

~~~
muyuu
Many places in Japan are basically bike theft free. I used to live in a town
in Kansai where people just left the bikes in the train station for their
commutes without any kind of locks, and just found them in the evening when
they were back. I was completely amazed by this. In Tokyo they mostly used
basic locks that came with the bike, not sure what's the situation now, a
decade later.

Now, some "gaijin" saw a business opportunity there and basically this level
of safety is over in most big cities. I think it's totally understandable that
they target foreigners. Japan is one of the safest places in the world and
they want it to remain that way.

~~~
Retric
Do you have any evidence it was a 'gaijin' or is that just racism?

------
kevinalexbrown
It makes sense that large-scale operations are common in locations with a big
bike scene. These will likely require a distribution network, so fighting bike
theft might benefit from focusing on infiltrating those networks.

I had a friend who bought a bike lock that was insured against any thefts
(whether they were quick with the insurance, I don't know). When he went to
register it, he saw that there were two exceptions, one of which was the city
in which he lived: Eugene Oregon, a town with tens of thousands of students.
After asking around, he was told bike thieves there loaded entire bike racks
onto trucks in a couple minutes, then removed each lock at their leisure in a
storage facility.

I find it hard to imagine that they sold them off individually: it's too
suspicious to have a few people selling hundreds of bikes. Likewise,
delegating to underlings to sell the bikes also seems too risky, as several
people now know about the enterprise. I suppose they sell wholesale to used
bike shops in other towns who are in the know.

The solution in this case would seem to be turning criminals into witnesses, a
la drug enforcement. Enforcement on an individual-basis wouldn't work: mere
possession of a single stolen bicycle is unlikely to prove criminality. I
doubt penalizing individuals for owning a bike (as with counterfeit money)
would work either: if I go to a used bike shop to buy a bike, they're not
going to give me the "stolen discount" - the shop is going to mark it up to
the same price as legitimate used bikes.

~~~
pavel_lishin
> Likewise, delegating to underlings to sell the bikes also seems too risky,
> as several people now know about the enterprise.

It seems to work for drug dealers.

~~~
greiskul
Well, but with drugs I assume a lot of purchases are from repeat costumers, so
it's easier to call less attention.

------
elliottcarlson
There is a bike seller in Manhattan who uses an interesting system in
reselling his (more than likely) stolen bikes.

Once a buyer contacts him via craigslist, he finds out the persons general
vicinity, brings the bike to the area and locks it up with a combo lock based
chain. He will give you the address of the bike, and if you like it, can make
the purchase online and you receive the combination. If you don't want it, he
can pick it up who knows when - or leave it for someone else to check out. If
the bike gets stolen, he hasn't lost anything on his bottom line and at no
point is he in physical communication with the actual purchaser.

~~~
simba-hiiipower
interesting; i’d say that's pretty damn brilliant.

then again, if the risk of being caught (and punished) is as low in NY as it
appears to be in SF, that seems like a bit of an overkill; wonder what the
scale of his organization is..?

~~~
elliottcarlson
This same concept was debated within the realm of drug trade - which obviously
is at a different risk level. With special compartment style locks on a chain,
the same concept is possible - without a dealer having to ever interact
directly with the buyer. Same concept can also exist for hiding information
(whistle blowers hiding a SD card with data, a key, who knows what).

I don't know about SF, but it is not uncommon to see just a bike chain hanging
on a post - it just fits in to the environment and no one will notice someone
just walking up and taking their chain with the right combination.

~~~
simba-hiiipower
considered drugs in this case, but couldn't figure out how that would work;
how would you prevent theft (from your would-be customer)?

there’s no conceivable way i can think of to present a drug for someone to
‘check-out’ without enabling that person to steal it..

~~~
mobweb
I've been reading a lot of books on the subject lately and I think that's
exactly how a lot street-level dealers (the lowest ranked members of the
empire) are operating. The dealer would hide their product somewhere close by,
for example in an empty soda can in a garbage bin or in a crack in the
pavement. Once a client has made a purchase the dealer would tell the client
where his stuff is hidden and the client can then go and take it.

If a dealer was busted he would never have any product on him, and the risk is
relatively low if you consider that these people usually deal in units worth
probably less than 20$ each. So if a package gets stolen or lost it's no big
deal really.

~~~
Evbn
This is illustrated at length in The Wire season 1.

------
Jun8
I think a useful tactic to curb loss of expensive bikes would be to legally
target the people who buy them, these are the people that cause the market to
exist and perpetuate the situation. My guess is that most of these people are
not crooks, i.e. they are just young people who want to but can't afford a
nice bike and they know exactly what they are buying. I don't understand
anything about bikes so can't give an example there, but if a person would
approach me to sell, say, a 2010 Prius for $5K, I just _know_ that is a stolen
car. If knowingly buying a stolen car carries even a small legal charge, most
people wouldn't do it.

Tangentially, and pardon my ignorance, I'm not a biker: I can't understand
people who shell out _thousands_ of dollars for a bike, are these so much
better than a $500 one?

~~~
fffggg
"I just know that is a stolen car"

Which is why criminals do not charge half of its used value -- they charge
100% of the used value just like everyone else.

You cannot tell a stolen bike on craigslist apart from a non-stolen bike based
on the price alone.

The problem of stolen cars is addressed through licensing and registration.
Not to mention, bicycles do not have a reliable and standardized VIN system
like cars do. The fact is, the hassle of creating and enforcing such a system
probably outweighs the positive aspects of preventing bike crime.

~~~
TallGuyShort
I lived in a town that required all bikes to be registered and licensed, and
all sales of bikes to go through the local government. It was such a big pain
that I would rather just live with the higher risk of theft and the lack of
enforcement.

~~~
brown9-2
What town was this?

~~~
akgerber
Many towns have laws like this from the 1970s that are unenforced (except,
perhaps, as an excuse to bother the people police don't like).

San Diego just repealed theirs: [http://www.bikesd.org/2012/08/02/city-of-san-
diego-to-remove...](http://www.bikesd.org/2012/08/02/city-of-san-diego-to-
remove-bicycle-licensing-requirement/)

------
jvdh
I live in the Netherlands, and bikes here are omnipresent. They also get
stolen. A lot. Which is why most bikes you see in cities tend to be not too
great looking.

About 10 years ago in the city of Utrecht the bike stealing was a really big
problem. Here also the stealing of bikes is really hard to get caught with.
The police used decoy bikes to catch thieves trying to steal those, but also
this only catches small parts of them.

Ultimately this has been solved by also changing the way people handle this.
If your bike got stolen, you just went out into the city, found a junkie, and
often he had a bike for sale. If not he would have one 10 minutes later.

The police changed their approach to this, and started cracking down hard on
the selling of bikes on the street. Not only the people selling them, but also
the people _buying_ the bike. Even going so far as police officers going
undercover and trying to get people to buy bikes.

Within months the stealing of bikes dropped to near zero.

~~~
hessenwolf
Freakonomics discusses the exact same factor with drug dealing and the oldest
profession - adding risk to the seller results in increasing margins which
attracts more sellers; whereas adding risk to the buyer results in the margins
dropping too low to be worth even a small risk for the seller.

Also, when I see somebody on a re-sprayed bike, that hasn't obviously been re-
sprayed with purely artistic intent, I want to beat them in the face until
they die (lost too many bikes myself).

~~~
eru
My bike has been re-painted because the old paint was coming off. I guess that
counts as another excuse.

~~~
hessenwolf
Well, luckily I wouldn't hurt a fly, so none of your type have been harmed :).

------
markbnine
_If Goldman Sachs didn’t have more profitable market inefficencies to exploit,
they might be out there arbitraging stolen bikes._

Funny how no explanation is needed for this line. Goldman Sachs (and hence,
Wall Street) is now the poster child for risk-free crime.

~~~
kcl
It's a curious line, and while when I read it I let it pass with conditional
assent, I now think it's incorrect.

Wall Street has poorer-than-usual ethics, and does commit crimes for profit,
but in general it is wary of the legal system. Wall Street tends not to
exploit opportunities that run afoul of the legal system, even when they are
risk-adjusted comparable to other opportunities. They would rather make money
legally than illegally, if they can help it.

To use the wording of the article, Goldman Sachs (Wall Street) typically does
not commit crimes when "the potential revenue from the crime [is] greater than
the probability adjusted weight of getting caught", even if you set the
adjusted revenue to average profitability.

In particular, Goldman Sachs (Wall Street) is gunshy with respect to the US
legal system. From a charitable standpoint, perhaps this is out of an ethical
respect for the law. From a cynical standpoint, perhaps there is another more
involved risk calculation which takes into account long-term reputation and
the unpredictability of political administrations and legal settlements. Given
a long enough outlook cynical self-interest approaches ethics.

~~~
akkartik
The point of grandparent was precisely that you let it pass on a first
reading. It doesn't matter whether it's true, it's a huge image shift.

------
laserDinosaur
I've always wanted to buy a cheap bike and create a quick release bolt on the
rear wheel that unspools as the wheel turns. I figure the culprit could get 3
or 4 revolutions before the back wheel falls off. Or maybe attach a length of
wire to the front brake cable that wraps around the rear axel. Suddenly the
wire snaps tight and yanks the front brakes. I figure it would make a good
youtube series. My main fear is being stabbed to death by an angry bike
thief...

~~~
alanfalcon
This brings to mind Alan Turing's bicycle in Cryptonomicon:

    
    
      "So Turing can leave his bicycle anywhere and be confident that, if stolen, it won’t go more than a fifth of a kilometer before the chain falls off."
    

The whole passage (it relates eventually to Enigma and Cipher Text) is a good
read: <http://www.euskalnet.net/larraorma/crypto/slide18.html>

Of course, the whole book is a good read, so skip the link and head to a
bookstore.

~~~
samstave
Any pics of this mechanism?

~~~
bct
No mechanism, just a damaged bicycle.

------
monkeyfacebag
The "risk" as described here seems to account for only single incidences of
bicycle theft. Seems like the more professional the bike thief, the larger the
inventory of stolen bikes, thus the greater the penalty for being caught.
Given that the value of stolen bikes on the market is relatively low, this
might explain why there is no bike thief kingpin: at a certain point the risk
exceeds the reward.

As an aside: I am surprised that the risk to kidnappers is considered higher
than the risk to bank robbers. Can anyone explain this?

~~~
simonsarris
> I am surprised that the risk to kidnappers is considered higher than the
> risk to bank robbers. Can anyone explain this?

Kidnapping, if you're holding out for ransom, is like playing a game of hot
potato but you have to wait for your opponent's go-ahead before you can toss
it.

Kidnapping (if you're looking for a random) is about aquiring something you
don't want and nobody wants you to have so that you can make a risky deal that
exposes you. You run the risk of being set up, and even if the deal is done
successfully I'd imagine you'd run the risk of revenge, especially with any
target worth a large value.

~~~
wisty
It's also a more violent crime, and one which gets more police attention. As
long as you have a hostage, the police will hunt you like it's a murder case,
but with more urgency.

------
midas
I've heard rumors that lots of stolen bikes are exported on container ships
leaving the US. The argument is that the shipping is basically free, since
most ships are carrying large deliveries to the US and are empty on the return
trip.

Does anyone know if this is fact or fiction?

~~~
lallysingh
Not terribly hard to find out -- the bike generates its own power, and is run
outside. A few bikes with GPS and call-home device (powered by the bike) would
draw traces to their destinations pretty quickly.

~~~
mrclark411
Would love for someone to do a long form sting. Install gps on 10 bikes and
follow them as they get stolen and passed around.

~~~
agumonkey
I now have napkin designs of just this.

I got hit by what seems to be some kind of paradox: old casual bikes are
targeted more often than expensive flashy ones.

~~~
agumonkey
For a reason I can't reply to you brk but I used the same ideas.

My last question was about communicating openly or not about it.

    
    
        - Openly would make robber aware and probably come up with attacks 
          or blocking means, but that would surely render their activities 
          a lot more complicated. Could be mass-produced.
    
        - Secretly a few people would have it and use it as bait, and 
          authorities being aware of the scheme would casually catch robbers 
          later. No mass-production
    

Oh one more thing, I was thinking about using a cellular module with custom
firmware to reply to text messages with gps position but I'm not sure it's
feasible.

~~~
pavel_lishin
Sometimes I don't see a reply link on certain comments; clicking on the direct
link for those comments, though, shows me the "reply" button.

~~~
agumonkey
I tried that, without success. It's probably a karma related behavior

~~~
Dove
Actually, it's time-related and everyone sees it. Deeper comment threads have
a timer that prevents comments for several minutes. It's to give people
arguing with each other time to cool off.

~~~
agumonkey
Are those rules written somewhere ? I like the tree pruning effect of this one

~~~
Dove
<http://ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html> has some of them, but not nearly all of
them.

------
rodolphoarruda
You are retro feeding the system when you buy an stolen item, even in good
faith not knowing it has been stolen. A possible way out is to check the
serial number of the frame. Most modern bikes have a serial number engraved in
the bottom bracket. Before buying a second hand bike, check the serial number
online, just Google it. See if the previous (sad) owner had posted a notice on
the incident somewhere: blog, dedicated site to stolen bikes[1] etc. If you
happen to find confirmation, you know what to do.

[1] <http://www.bicicletasroubadas.com.br> (Portuguese)

------
derda
I dont know if its common in the anywhere else but in my town here in germany
the stealing of bike-PARTS has become very popular. I guess the owners of
high-value bikes use better locks, that are actually hard to break ( like
those: [http://ebay.muskelkater-sport.de/fahrrad/schloesser/bordo-
gr...](http://ebay.muskelkater-sport.de/fahrrad/schloesser/bordo-granit-xplus-
maximum-level15-2.jpg) ). But for Parts the risk is even lower and a good
break or light system can yield a few bucks.

I personally use a cheap ( 50€ ) used bike as a daily driver, in combination
with a 30€ lock, there will mostly be an easier/better target for the thief
and if it ever gets stolen, its just 50 (80) bucks and not 1000€.

~~~
pyoung
Yup, very popular here in SF. I recently just got my wheels stolen. Also had a
few seats stolen as well. Stealing parts is probably more common than stealing
entire bikes. And if you look at the pictures of the stolen bikes linked in
the article, most of them are missing a front wheel, which to me, implies that
the thieves were targeting bikes that were only locked by their front wheel
(or they were selling the front wheels of the bikes, as those are pretty
common theft targets as well).

~~~
BenOfTomorrow
Yup; recently had my REAR wheel stolen (a large pain to replace tire, tube,
wheel, AND cassette). Now I lock both of them.

------
stcredzero
_> In 1968, Chicago economist Gary Becker introduced the notion that criminal
behavior could be modeled using conventional economic theories._

We need to start examining the motivations for cracking in the same way. Locks
in the real world are far from foolproof, and work as much or more because of
societal expectations and economics than they do because of their embodied
technology.

What most companies do with DRM ignores reality in two important ways:

    
    
        1) Your own technological capability and manpower can be overwhelmed
             by the tech and manpower available to the Internet as a whole.
        2) If you have something of significant monetary or prestige value, 
             you are not going to secure it with a single supremely clever lock. 
    

Real world security consists of a defense in depth. Real locks and safes
aren't burglar-proof. Instead, they are rated to delay thieves for a certain
length of time. Their purpose is to _increase the risk of the transaction_
thereby making it _uneconomical_.

Crackers will always win if the payoff is worth the effort.

Presently, any software downloaded to a user's machine can be cracked.
Therefore, do not try to prevent that -- it's a losing battle. Refuse the
things that you can economically refuse. (Server-side functionality, service
and support, participation online.)

Detection is 1000X as powerful, _if the consequences are separated in time_
from the actual detection. If you give the game away immediately, you are
providing your opponent data. If the consequences are delayed by 3 days or
even several months, the economics of cracking become like the economics of
fixing intermittent bugs and Heisenbugs.

Security needs to focus on _economic leverage_. Since your opponents have more
time and capability than you, you need to ensure that they are spending 1000X
more resources to combat your actions. Instead of needing to catch them every
time, or your game is lost, make them need to catch you every time, or their
game is lost. (The robber needs to get away with the heist every time, while
the police only need to catch him once. However, the guerrilla fighters only
need to get away with a raid occasionally, while the occupiers need to catch
them every time. Yet in both situations, the 1st party has far fewer
resources. Something to think about.)

------
Mc_Big_G
A woman at work had her bike stolen in SF (off the front of a bus if you can
believe that) and decided to go to every flea-market she could find in Oakland
that weekend. When she found the bike she just took it and dared the guy
selling it to do something about it. She just rode away. :)

------
andrewtbham
My experience has been most bike thieves are kids. It's a training in a way
for car thieves. They chop the bikes up, and paint them, then ride or sell
them. bikes are a valuable commodity in bad neighborhoods cuz lots of people
can't afford cars and public transportation might not take them where they
need to go.

------
etfb
A suitably sociopathic individual could probably have a beneficial effect on
the bike theft rates in a city by just going around to the places where stolen
bikes are sold and beating the sellers mostly to death with a baseball bat.
That'd be an intriguing experiment for an economist with the right sort of
anti-social personality disorder (which is all of them, so I feel silly making
the distinction).

------
sixQuarks
Does anyone actually use priceonomics.com? I'm sorry, but I don't find the
service useful at all. They come up with viral blog posts all the time, but
the service is not actually something that I would use.

~~~
daveman
When I was looking to buy an Aeron chair, I used it to learn the range of
market prices, and even was able to negotiate the seller down with the
information from the site. I wouldn't have been able to get such a
comprehensive view (in any reasonable amount of time) by just reading through
CL. So yes it has been pretty useful to me.

------
slurgfest
If the price of bikes hadn't gone through the roof within the last 20 years
there wouldn't be so much incentive to steal them. As it is you can hardly buy
a new bike for less than $800 at most shops.

Even if I could attach a weatherproofed Macbook to a pole with a U-lock, it
would still be really unwise to do so. This is a pitiful commentary on our
society and law enforcement

~~~
lambda
Really? I just went to a shop to look at bikes (and a real bike shop, not Wal-
Mart), and there were options in the $300-$400 range. At Wal-Mart and Target
and the like, you can get bikes in the $100-$200 range (or really crappy ones
for even cheaper).

------
webandy
The best workaround I know of for bike commuting is bike share programs. (US
examples: "Nice Ride" in Minneapolis or "Capital Bikeshare" in DC). In these
examples, the bikes are large, relatively unattractive, limited functionality
(3 speeds), have distinctive designs, and these things to me I'm hoping remove
the incentive to steal the bike.

------
donpdonp
It would help if every purchaser of a bicycle checked the frame serial number
against various online stolen bike databases. I'm not sure how fragmented the
bike registration industry is.

~~~
jiggy2011
I wonder how many people record their frame numbers, or even know that they
exist?

I have 3 bikes and haven't got the frame numbers written down anywhere.
Although I will rectify this now!

------
tlb
The current police policy is to not investigate thefts under some threshold,
say $2000. So you can steal bikes all day long and never get caught. A better
policy would be to investigate thefts of value X with probability X / $4000.
It's roughly the same total work, but doesn't create a safe haven for low-
value thieves.

------
brucehart
This is an area where a disruptive technology is due. Imagine if even 10% of
bikes had technology that wirelessly sends out GPS coordinates or can identify
the owner via an embedded RFID tag. Suddenly stealing bikes is not nearly as
risk free and the incentive to participate is greatly reduced.

~~~
jjara
Yes! Or a bar code/serial number encrusted in bikes' structure would do. Only
this requires efforts from bike brands, owner, or shops to obtain a
sustainable back-end tracking infrastructure.

------
ChuckMcM
I love priceonomics, every time I read one of their articles I learn something
new (for example I didn't realize you could exchange a stolen bike for sex).
Approaching this as an economics problem seems like a good approach. I think
if bike manufacturers built in ways to uniquely identify bikes, and those
idents were economically infeasible to remove, then you could do a bitcoin
style distributed database of the current 'real' owner of a bike, then the
cops could periodically go into 7th and Market or where ever, collect all the
stolen bikes and tell their owners they are recovered. If you remove 1/2 the
bad dealers inventory every month its going to cut into their profits, and if
they stop buying stolen bikes in bulk you make it harder to flip them etc etc.

~~~
ljf
Most (all?) bikes have a serial number stamped on the bottom of the 'bottom
bracket' the part that the pedals go into. These serial numbers are unique per
bike brand, but not universally unique.

The serial is pretty hard to remove, without it's removal being obvious to
anyone that looks, though the brand can be removed or changed - if that
happens the serial wouldn't show as stolen.

If there was a lookup for serials then you could check if the bike was stolen,
or if the bike was incorrectly branded (serial doesn't match brand), but there
isn't a central place for this, unless the (ex)owner registers it on a service
such as immobilise.com

~~~
kisielk
My fiance's bike was stolen a few months ago. By coincidence someone who was a
friend of a friend of her's ended up buying it off of craigslist. We
discovered this when he arrived at a BBQ riding her bike. When we asked about
the details of his purchase, he sent us all the email correspondance with the
bike thief.

The thief had actually given him the serial number of the bike, which he
checked in the online police database and it returned no hits. The catch was
that the thief slightly altered the serial number so that it wouldn't yield
any hits. When he went to actually look at the bike he didn't notice the
subtle difference in the serial number and assumed it to be legit.

~~~
tadfisher
Motor vehicle VINs in North America use a check digit to detect VIN errors,
which consequently makes it hard to modify a VIN without failing checks at
time of purchase (such as when the VIN is looked up via CarFax or at the DMV).
It's not cryptographically "hard" to modify it, but additional check digits up
the difficulty (like appending a hash to the plaintext serial number).

The OCR-A character set used in the MICR numbers on checks makes it easy to
spot a modification like the one in your story.

------
dmm
Cities should levy a bike tax and use it to fund some snipers that shoot
assholes who steal bikes.

~~~
pilsetnieks
Although I believe that summary executions are in bad taste, I want to point
out that, au contraire, the tax should be levied on car owners (to encourage
cycling).

~~~
ketralnis
Not everyone can choose to bike instead of drive. When my driving commute was
an hour longer than it is now, such a tax would not have encouraged me to
cycle instead.

~~~
lmm
There's always a choice. Maybe you'd've taken a different job - or maybe that
job would've relocated somewhere more accessible.

(I don't believe in "punitive" taxes on cars, but I do think gas should be
taxed enough to cover the cost of cleaning up its CO2/other pollution, and the
resulting money spent on doing that).

------
rdl
With crimes which are lightly prosecuted, I wonder if having infrequent but
very high severity punishment works comparably to having consistent but
moderate punishment.

In China, they do "Strike Hard" campaigns, where crimes which might normally
be gross misdemeanor level (shoplifting, assault) are punished far more
severely (sometimes by execution).

This might be a way to raise the expected cost of committing the crime, while
not raising the cost of anti-crime enforcement that much.

------
mobweb
Around where I live there's definitely another factor to consider: Opportunity
theft. A lot of bikes get stolen simply because it's very easy to do so,
especially downtown. On the weekends when there are lots of drunk people
around, a _LOT_ of bikes get stolen simply because people are too lazy to walk
or they just find it funny to steal a bike. These bikes sure as hell don't end
up at some kind of black market, instead they are simply left at some place
and somebody else picks them up. It's like a never-ending cycle of bike theft.
Also it doesn't help that most bike locks are ridiculously easy to break.

Another thing that I've noticed (I'm an avid freeride-biker) is that there are
actually gangs that target high-end bikes. They have spies at known bike-
trails and follow people home. If they see an expensive bike they break into
cellars, garages and sometimes even people's apartments just to steal a bike.
The bikes are then taken apart and most components are sold right away (a
second hand fork in good shape can still go for $1000+ in some cases) and the
frame itself is shipped abroad and sold separately. I'm actually very paranoid
because it's happened to two friends already... :/

------
karpathy
One of the links hidden away in the article is actually quite amusing:
[http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/13/opinion/bike-
thief.html?_r...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/13/opinion/bike-
thief.html?_r=1) It is a video if a guy stealing a bike a few times with
saw/crowbar etc. (Except it's actually a hidden camera setup and it's his
bike. Spoiler alert: Many people walk by, noone cares)

~~~
sageikosa
The major deterrent in long public illegal operations is not the fear of a
bystander taking action, but in the soon-to-be injured party (or a compatriot
of such) taking notice.

Someone trying to get into a car could have just accidentally locked his keys
in. Someone trying to get into my car has nefarious intent.

------
at-fates-hands
The one thing I would've liked to see was the age breakdown of the offenders.
I remember vividly in junior high there was a kid who stole BMX bikes,
soldered off the serial number and then re-sold them for around $300 a piece.
He got to be like a professional car thief in that he would take requests if
someone wanted something specific.

It was a very lucrative side business for a 12 year old kid.

------
lostnet
I'm sure a significant portion especially in the high end can be explained by
rational actors with pretty low prospects. But I'm suspicious that there isn't
a lot more of the less rational going on. The hoarder mentioned in the article
may not be an outlier and bike theft is also sort of a low stakes learning
ground.

In anything approaching an urban center I see a lot of abandoned bikes (locked
and slowly vultured.) They are generally attributed to lazy owners, but a
portion may be decaying inventories of hoarders, joy riders and/or thrill
seekers.

I'm reminded of inventories of locks on urban fences. Obviously the
collections of not so rational (but social or antisocial) actors.

I think a good urban experiment would be a collection system that pays ~$5 a
bike (and gives immunity once you arrive) and charges ~$7.50 to a verifiable
owner before selling back into the free market of "used" bikes. A little cross
between a repo-man and the can man, to keep the things a little tighter and
make it more likely lessons are learnt on the cheap.

------
daveman
A few months ago I saw a tweaked-out guy at 6th & Howard in San Francisco
(just outside the Techshop) literally trying to saw-off a U-lock in broad
daylight. A bunch of other homeless guys were lazily watching with amusement.

I really would love to build a pepperspray-bomb-in-a-U-lock, if only I could
do so without being instantly sued by a litigious thief.

------
lkbm
> He had to learn a life lesson a little earlier than I had liked - that there
> are some people in the world who are just plain mean.

We live in a complex world full of complex people with countless motivations.
It's always tempting to dismiss someone as "just plain mean", but it's rarely
accurate.

I realize this is somewhat off-topic. Just stood out to me.

------
miccla
I love these Freakenomic-y types of articles. Really makes you think about
very every day occurrences in different ways.

I thought maybe I could add some game theory into the mix, just for the sake
of it. For example...

Following an economic perspective it could be viewed, given the suggestions
made in the article, that for your average bike on the street it is almost
impossible to protect against theft using a lock or by any other "practical"
means. Therefore (bare with me) when you park your bike on the street you are
in a sense "competing" with other cyclist in presenting the worst return for
the criminal. Locks, paint jobs, parking locations etc. are just ways of
saying to the thief "Hey, this is going to be difficult. Why not have a go at
stealing that shiny looking bike next to mine." You are not solely competing
against the criminals but your fellow cyclists!

------
Eliezer
I wasn't surprised by the drugs part, but learning that stolen bikes are
considered street currency actually makes me more bullish on Bitcoin. It's
still a terrible idea, but it's got to be more convenient than using bikes as
currency.

I wonder what would happen if the criminal world started experiencing
hyperdeflation?

~~~
nrp
Sure, buy crack with Bitcoins, and wait around for 20 minutes for the block
chain to verify. The same delay that makes it irritating for legal in person
transfers makes it useless for hand to hand criminal transfers.

------
xfernandox
Some bikes are REALLY expensive. Look at the lengths this guy goes to recover
his:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poBajFv-Dyk>

Don't mess with bikers. Something that's your mode of transit everywhere
starts to mean more than just the $ value.

------
jawr
A Dutch friend once told me that bike theft in Holland was pretty ripe, but it
was more of a social norm; people wouldn't feel bad about stealing a rubbish
bike and then leaving it somewhere for someone else to steal.. the bikes would
almost become communal bikes.

------
ffn
How about a bike with a combo lock built into its gears so that all the gears
will only spin if the correct combo is given. The built-in combo lock can also
be rigged to detonate some wired-in explosive if someone attempts to
forcefully remove it.

------
zurn
What kind of insurance options exist in the US for bikes?

Over here your basic home insurance covers the bike theft minus a deductible
(often something like 200e). Then you can get a separate bike insurance for
25e/year which will cover the deductible and also register the bikes serial
number in a database and they (claim to) do some cooperation with the police
and border officials to flag stolen bike serial numbers and return stolen
bikes to owners. Your bike also gets a special sticker which probably repels
bike thieves. Many retailers automatically preregister bikes with this service
and include 3 months of free insurance, and include ads for the full
service...

------
OllieJones
When I was a college student, I had my bikes stolen so often that I did two
things: First, I started buying hot bikes cheap because, hey, legal bikes were
expensive.

Second, I wrapped the frame of one bike in masking tape and smeared grease and
paint on it. I kept that one for years; not even the local junkies wanted it.
I guess they didn't notice my servicable Campy brakes and shifters, or didn't
see the value in them.

I'm not sure the rational-actor theory applies to bike theft.

UNLESS it's the bike dealers behind the theft rings doing it to create demand,
and they're just crushing the old stuff. Bwahahahahahaha. There's a batman
movie in that villain theory.

------
nsns
And of course: the stolen goods are also your means of escape; an added
advantage.

------
marklabedz
While we're at it, bike lock advice from one of cycling's old grey beards,
Sheldon Brown: <http://www.sheldonbrown.com/lock-strategy.html>

~~~
alexfoo
That's a flawed lock strategy. I wouldn't ever want to do that. I always
include the rear wheel and the seat-tube (or seat-stays) inside my D-lock.

"There is no need to loop it around the seat tube as well, because the wheel
cannot be pulled through the rear triangle."

The two simple methods I've seen for defeating it (based on seeing just
mangled rear wheels locked up to railings/bike racks) is to:-

a) Stamp on the rear wheel and fold it so that it fits through the rear
triangle. (No tools required). b) Cut a bunch of spokes (easy to do with a
pair of wire cutters) and press the rear wheel flat so that it fits through
the rear triangle.

The rear wheel on one of my main bikes is £100; the rest of the bike is £1500.
No chance I'm going to risk that.

Thieves won't care about not having a rear wheel if they're sticking bikes in
the back of a van to sort out or sell off at a later date.

Sadly Sheldon isn't alive today to discuss and review that strategy.

------
king-ink
Here in the Netherlands (with an average of 2 bikes per inhabitant) there is
another big class of bicycle thieves: those whose bike just got stolen, and
don't want to buy a new one (yet again)...

------
rkalvi
I think there is a decent underground operation of used bikes: I recently
bought a bike off a used car bike shop in mountain view ( off of shoreline ).
You walked in and there were 500 bikes ( in all shapes and sizes ) available.
From vintage to kids to racing. You name it. I always wondered where they got
their bikes from. Most bike owners dont report, keep track of the bike ids.
And police dont have incentives to track them. If the margins weren't there,
people wont steal them.

------
adrianhoward
One of the things I noticed when I was in Copenhagen for a week earlier this
year was that people don't lock up their bikes as much. I saw lots of people
leaving bikes unlocked when going into coffee shops, etc. when in the UK
they'd be locking 'em up.

There were many bikes that were locked - but they looked more like "commuter
bikes" near the metro and office buildings. Folk using them to get around
during the day often seemed to leave them unlocked.

------
claytonp
What about bike parts? Bike seats, wheels, etc get stolen all the time. Are
they just scrapping these parts out for 5 to 10 cents on the dollar as well?

------
WalterBright
My bike is a nice 10 speed I bought 35 years ago. It still works fine, is an
excellent bike, and is worth maybe $25.

I doubt it's worth stealing.

~~~
akgerber
Vintage steel bikes have gone up in price quite a bit in the last 5 years or
so, especially in big cities.

------
Catsy
This seemed timely, so I thought I'd share: an electric bike company, OHM
Cycles (<http://ohmcycles.com>) is running a free contest to win a really
high-end bike lock worth $200. You can enter here:
<http://www.facebook.com/ohmcycles/app_143103275748075>

------
rwallace
Crazy idea time: since the problem with the demand end is the difficulty of
telling the difference between stolen property and legitimate secondhand
sales, what would happen if all sales of secondhand bikes were banned? Would
the reduction in theft be worth the loss of end-of-life revenue plus slight
erosion of liberty? Not a rhetorical question, I don't know the answer.

------
Steko
I wonder if the large number of stolen bikes on the market basically depresses
local prices to the extent that even if you have to buy a new bike you don't
lose that much vs a world with minimal bike theft. The Japanese market might
be relevant, as 10-15 years ago there was seemingly little bike theft and now
it's rampant in certain areas.

------
bigeric23
In NYC most stolen bikes are resold to delis and pizza shops for their
delivery guys. Ever wonder why the minimum wage delivery guy is riding a $800
cannondale? They usually wrap the frame in duct tape so you don't recognize
it. Get flat or a Bent rim? Just buy a new one from your local crackhead for
$25 and you are on your way.

------
antihero
If I had more time I do believe I'd enjoy getting a fairly fancy bicycle,
having a friend park it up, lock it with a fairly crap lock, and then just
chill out at a nearby cafe watching it, waiting for some piece of shit to
steal it, and then following them and seeing where they go with it/beating the
everliving shit out of them.

------
cpeterso
In Berkeley, Karim Cycle is a "used bike" shop infamous for fencing stolen
bikes. Everyone knows it, but proving it is too much work for the police. The
Yelp reviews are funny but disheartening: <http://www.yelp.com/biz/karim-
cycle-berkeley-3>

------
kiterow
I know of someone who would steal bikes just to get back home from the bar. He
was too cheap for a taxi. He had a huge stash of them in his basement because
he didn't know what to do with them. So when he had parties at his house he
started giving them to people so they could get home.

------
gadders
Slightly off topic anecdote:

A colleague of mine has his bike stolen from Ham House in Richmond, but
fortunately the police quickly identifed the thief from CCTV footage.

It was a particularly hot day, and they could clearly see where the thief had
his name tattooed on his back.

------
degenerate
Google cache:
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:blog.pr...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:blog.priceonomics.com%2Fpost%2F30393216796%2Fwhat-
happens-to-stolen-bicycles)

------
eightbitman
What happens to stolen bicycles? Seriously, what happens to them? This article
doesn't begin to address the question within the first paragraph, and if they
can't format their article properly I can't justify spending time reading it.

------
binarycheese
"Just because the risk of a crime is zero, that doesn’t mean that a criminal
will engage in that crime. If that were the case, thieves would go about
stealing dandelions and day-old newspapers"

Now, that's classic.

------
dbz
My guess is that bikes will get GPS devices put in them eventually. Then
people will be able to track their routes etc. Maybe when that happens, people
will be able to track their stolen bikes.

------
JoeAltmaier
If expensive bikes wouldn't work for the thief or their client, they would
stop. RFID tag embedded in the frame, locking the headset? Just have to make
it hard enough to not be worth it.

------
mongonuts
"Open Letter to the Guy Who Stole My Bike Wheel"
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m68-oWBh9Ow>

------
abecedarius
So the penalty is near zero if you're caught, this says. Does that also go for
thefts of other items of comparable price, like TVs? If not, why the
difference?

------
Jhansen
We have the same problem in the major cities of Brazil. I live in Curitiba and
i lost 9 bikes stolen 'till now.

Jhansen - www.ciclismo.esp.br

------
hcarvalhoalves
"If Goldman Sachs didn’t have more profitable market inefficencies to exploit,
they might be out there arbitraging stolen bikes."

Ouch! LOL

------
metdos
Even though I locked it, my bicycle also was stolen in Barcelona in 15 minutes
in middle of city.

------
Emann
my friends bike being stolen: caught on tape in NYC. Lets find this guy!!!
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1E1ck8LDlE&feature=plcp](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1E1ck8LDlE&feature=plcp)

------
6ren
This is why I don't want to buy a second-hand bike.

