Post #1946997

2026-04-29 15:17 UTC

It should be relatively easy to make bike theft so risky that virtually no one would do it anymore: The police could plant a ton of “bait bikes” in order to catch thieves. I wish that were a higher priority. #Cycling

Replies (3)

@trouble@masto.ai 2026-04-29 15:54

@light_bulbs@mastodon.green Watching/tracking bait bikes is expensive. Once you start, you must never stop, so it’s a permanent ongoing cost, not a one-time thing, because there are always New thieves. Stopping all local thieves means they’ll instead drive in from out-of-town. Let’s say you add trackers, well then they’ll start using shielded (all metal) boxes to hold the bikes in until they can part it out and destroy the trackers. Every bit of this happens today with cars. Amsterdam has a huge theft problem.

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@trouble@masto.ai 2026-04-29 15:56

@light_bulbs@mastodon.green Even expensive locks is not a deterrent. Just look on YouTube for thieves in broad daylight using angle grinders to steal e-bikes with good >$100 locks. You can video them from 5 ft away, they keep going.

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@assaf@mas.to 2026-04-29 16:21

@light_bulbs@mastodon.green they did that for many years in SF https://www.techspot.com/news/56928-san-francisco-police-using-gps-tracked-bait-bikes-to-lure-thieves.html I don't think it made bike theft "risky" enough to solve much, and you can guess what bias made it palatable to city residents

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