Is it just my town ?

Thieves are more interested in high powered cars here so they can make a quick get away after breaking into a house.

In our area there are lots of bike thefts and scooter thefts. Also on the rise are thefts of tools from work vans which is awful. I've seen stickers on vans saying "No tools in van overnight". Thefts affecting people's livelihood are disgusting. 50 odd years ago my brother had his homemade go kart stolen from him and my father tracked it down and confronted the thief's father. He got it back with 10 bob for my brother and the thief got a hiding from his own father. Changed days!

We recently moved with my wife and apparently we didn't come across the most prosperous area because our bike was stolen too. I was just in shock. We were upset because the bike is quite expensive. We ordered Ajax motion sensors that day, and also ordered surveillance cameras at home, but already from another company, my wife was looking for, I don't remember. By the way, it's very convenient, because we connected the cameras to the application and now we have both sensors and cameras in one place. And in general, I hope that there will be no more thefts.

Nana8
It’s a lot easier to whip through a precinct on a bike and steal a phone out of someone’s hand.
I’ve been very close to 2 such thefts this summer.

It happened to my son but fortunately he saw it parked outside B&Q unlocked so he pinched it back ?

Our Grandson’s bike was stolen. It was his pride and joy, he is only 13 and the bike represented a degree of independence for him. He was absolutely gutted. The boy who stole the bike was identified and had stashed the bike at another boy’s house. The frame was recovered, but the valuable gear mechanism and wheel were not. Even though the parents of the second boy confirmed that the first boy had asked them to store the bike in their garage, he got away with it completely. The thief’s Mother even admitted that he had stolen it. Despite this, no further action was taken by the Police, the boy got away with it Scot free (again, as he has done it before). We bought our Grandson another bike as we did not want him to go without. I actually feel sorry for the thief, he is being taught a very dangerous lesson that life has no consequences for those who flout the law. I imagine his life has started on a course he is unlikely to change..:

In Cambridge in the early 60’s , all our bicycles had to have a college registration number painted on the mudguards. If your bike was ‘nicked’ or ‘borrowed’ it was usually found dumped in the town somewhere. There was also a large police pound where dumped bikes were stored - So you could usually be reunited with yours in the end. Mind you, most of our bikes were fairly scruffy uprights with baskets - not like the very smart expensive gear that students have now.

I’ve noticed an increasing number of young adults/older children using e-bikes extremely recklessly, in fact downright dangerously - to the extent they are endangering their own and other road users/pedestrians safety. These bikes are very expensive and suspect that some will have been acquired without the owners consent.

Buy a bicycle from local buy and sell sites. Don't pay more than a tenner and put it in your hallway each evening. Other than that, try walking for fitness
That was NOT the point of the thread at all effelump of course we can do that (although if you’re buying off a local buy and sell site you might well be buying a stolen bike) and cycling is just as healthy as walking it’s all exercise

I come from a middle sized town and we have three police officers in our towns team …..That’s the problem

South East area here. Many quality bikes are regularly stolen and the motorised ones too. It’s a daily occurrence and I agree the police numbers are so low they can’t cope with the thefts. Cat converters too. Police think it’s all drug related, yet don’t pursue known drug takers let alone the dealers. (Don’t know why they don’t call drug dealers. ‘Potential murderers’)
Leaving prams outside shops is unknown here too.
Dogs tied up are not safe outside shops.
What a wonderful world.

You’d think they would nick a car not a bike, must be either very young or desperate! They chuck out bikes on the nature strip, especially small ones for kids. Help yourself.

It's happening in our town in Norfolk too.Somebody is always posting on social media saying that their bike has been sto.en.

I am trying to sell my bicycle with absolutely no success. It's nothing flashing or fancy, just an ordinary small framed ladies cycle with a gel seat and new tyres.
Plenty of people would have it gifted but no one wants to pay for it.

Bikes are stolen everywhere, all you can do is make sure you have a lock that locks the back wheel and a chain lock so you can lock your bike to a lamppost or something similar.

Here bikes are so common that no-one stops cyclists and robs them of them, as it is easier to take a bike from a bike stand.

Mobile phones and money, yes, that gangs of schoolchildren threaten others to give up.

Bike theft carries a smaller risk of getting caught and if taken from outside the house is unlikely to be investigated even if you have a tracker on it or there is CCTV. My bike was recently stolen from my kitchen so was classed as burglary which meant it was taken more seriously. The police knew exactly who had stolen it as it had a tracker on it bu needed to get CCTV footage. I am still waiting (since January) to see if charges will be laid.

My DD's partner is a bit of a bike freak, and had a super-expensive carbon frame bike that the had built himself from parts. Thieves stole it from the underground car/bike park at his work (in a University in London). It was well chained up. There was CCTV, and the thieves could be seen using bolt cutters to cut through the actual frame to remove the bike. That was what upset him most, that the bike was ruined, the frame could not have been repaired, but he'd lost it anyway, and the thieves were't caught despite the CCTV. And no, it wasn't insured. He said difficult to insure as self-built. His bikes have been since, though.

Just heard that my step grandson who went to Uni this week has had his bike stolen from outside the local Asda. It was captured by CCTV from the shop. He tried to report it to the police but can only do this by appointment face to face, next appointment available 3 weeks time!!!!!
One way of massaging the crime figures, people just give up.

Some, but not all, bike thefts can be attributed to gangs and county lines etc

Certainly in our area, an "initiation" was for a young person to steal a bike, to prove themselves. Quite how or why that proved anything I don't know, but I was told this information by the CCE (Child Criminal Exploitation) Officer where I work.

I was told the police have fitted trackers into the frames of some bikes that have been left in hot spots for bike theft they have been tracked to containers already to be shipped shipped abroad. A policeman told my husband “we don’t want to catch the person who nicks one bike we want to catch those who nick a container full, there is more chance of them going to be jailed”

Yes, it is everywhere, I suspect. My son had two classy bikes stolen when he lived in London, but had no trouble when he replaced them with a tatty old thing . Mind you, the concierge at The Ritz was pretty horrified when he tried to chain it up outside, to take me in for afternoon tea: "I'll take that ,Sir," and it disappeared off, sharpish, only to reappear when we left....

We live in a block of apartments and have had several bikes stolen from the underground carpark since the start of Covid. We have a video entry system but the thieves immediately follow in delivery people such as Amazon and could slip down to the garage. We have CCTV but it is harder to ID people when they were wearing masks. CCTV shows they are in and out in minutes. Police have been called and said it is people stealing them for easy money for drugs. We have now had a further lock fitted so only residents have access to the garage.

We had a TV report here in Spain that there is a shortage of new bikes due to covid in China affecting production, so thefts have increased accordingly.

You are right Urmstongran the police are too busy chasing motorists. Apart from the one who demolished our lovely , low, local stone garden wall and drove off leaving their front bumper behind, - and us to pay for repairs.
It seems bicycles are fair game just now with sales of second hand (stolen) ones at a premium.

Seems to be prevalent everywhere despite many of the extra security that many bike owners have been trying to use.
Locally, the police reported a few months ago that they went into a house on a completely different subject, looked out of the window at the back of the house to see that the back garden was full of bicycles in various states!
After further inspection of the rest of the house, garage and garden - there were somewhere in the region of over a hundred cycles, some complete, some in parts. The resident apparently was a big of a Fagen as far as bikes were concerned and had a team of youngsters who roamed the area stealing bikes that were then either sold or the ones that had identifying marks were cannibalised and sold for parts!
Some of the bikes could be returned to the original owners but the rest were donated to a charity .
The guy's attitude was that "they're all insured so they can be replaced"!!!

Buy a bicycle from local buy and sell sites. Don't pay more than a tenner and put it in your hallway each evening. Other than that, try walking for fitness.