Teaching Bike Thieves a Lesson
Okay so we do not recommend this. In fact we explicitly advise against it, because it is illegal and would subject you to criminal and potentially significant civil damages. However, the component of this plan that entails tracking with a pay-as-you-go cell phone seems valuable.
This gentlemen invented an interesting bicycle theft deterent and demonstrates it in this video on instructables.com:
“Bike thieves suck, so I decided to get even. Why not track and, if you’d like, shock these most egregious of folk? With a $40 pay-as-you-go cell phone, stun gun, and some basic electronic components, you can teach bike thieves a lesson and, hopefully, foster a small social change through individual action.”
(Note from Erik: Please read the comments to the linked article. The cell phone gps is clever, but the stun-gun feature is not. Don’t do it. You could kill or maim someone.)
-lauren
July 24th, 2008 at 2:08 pm
I was discussing “decoy” bikes the other day with some other theft weary folks on the UA campus. After exhausting the obligatory but highly illegal and immoral ideas involving 20ga shotgun shells, spring-driven sharpened spikes, and delayed-locking headsets, we came up with a simple, easy and cheap to make die-marking handlebar design that could be bolted onto any decoy bike. The vibration and motion induced by grabbing the bike and riding away with it mixes two otherwise separated chemicals, pressurizing the sealed handlebar enough to blow a cloud of indelible purple die out through tiny nozzles partially obscured in the handgrip/brake lever area, coating the face, chest, and forearms of the thief. Seems like a really good use for all those bikes that are abandoned by departing students every year and left clogging up the bike racks.
July 24th, 2008 at 3:07 pm
Erik – so what is a viable solution for the UA campus and surrounding area? All I can think of is a) lots more bike boxes, b) more limited access bike cages in the parking garages, and c) some attended parking. Locking both wheels and frame with a U-lock/cable combo seems to help, if nothing else the thieves go after the easier picking. Your thoughts?
Steve
July 24th, 2008 at 4:53 pm
So you booby trap the “decoy” bike, that you don’t ride. Thus protecting a worthless bike? I guess the alternative is accidentally shocking/stabbing/shooting yourself while riding your good bike.
The real question with this particular booby trap, however, is whether or not a painted steel frame would actually conduct electricity.
July 24th, 2008 at 6:06 pm
Hi Steve. I feel sorry for those poor UA students who, if they wish to use their bikes, need to leave them sometimes overnight or at least late at night locked outside.
Honestly my solution is not to change how you lock your bike but how you think about your bike. Consider a stolen bike a tax. You can get a perfectly serviceable old 10-speed with (ideally) bolt-on wheels for fifty bucks, and it will deliver you to and from school just fine. Lock it with a U-lock and about once a year, maybe less, it will vanish. When that happens, walk over to BICAS and get a new one.
It’s kind of the way I regard stop sign violations these days. I figure once every few years some cop will nail me for rolling through a Dunbar Spring roundabout. It’s not a ticket, it’s a tax. A bike tax. Aggravating, sure, but when did anyone get anywhere railing about taxes? It’s just blowing wind.
EBR
July 24th, 2008 at 11:04 pm
Ive thought about this before after losing a few bicycles to thieves. Better is an RFID device that you could track after the fact. Find out where your bike is via satellite–show up with the cops–get your bike and let justice take it’s course. Possibly killing someone and endangering innocents over a crime of property is not cool. Even so–the whole idea is very clever—DG
July 25th, 2008 at 11:59 am
Satellites can’t find RFID tags, heck the reader needs to be within a few feet. This is the real world, not TV.
The idea of a transmitter is good, you just need a power source and local receivers.
The question is how many bikes are ridden away, and how many are just lifted into the back of a van or pickup? The way the bike is moved will affect your countermeasures.
How about having a NATIONAL bike VIN number stamped into or perminentaly attached to the frame?
Then make a NATIONAL list of stolen bikes, and offer $20 reward for each stolen bike found.
This way teen age boys, equipped with an old palm hand held or something similar, could wonder around checking bikes and earning $20 for each one they turned in to the police.
Kids do plane spotting and train spotting, neither of which pay a dividend. Bike spotting. This would work.
Make obscuring the VIN a crime.
July 30th, 2008 at 12:46 am
James –the idea was given to me by an electronics engineer who works on missile systems–not TV–I remember when GPS was just a rumor when we were using analog systems to navigate.. Look where it is now.–DG
August 3rd, 2008 at 6:56 pm
This sounds like a great Idea. Hopefully the asshole is riding and falls into traffic. The cops should give you a reward for doing their jobs every kill you get.
October 29th, 2008 at 1:19 pm
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