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Comment by analog31 | Hacker News Reader

Indeed, concern about theft is one of the things that holds back adoption of cycling as a form of transportation in the US. I'm lucky that I live in an area where anti-theft aeshetics (tm) are sufficient to protect my bike, but in bigger cities it's a nightmare.

There's a dollar value threshold that the police use when deciding whether to investigate a theft. A simple measure would be to eliminate that threshold for bikes.

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It absolutely does. I own a bike, but I’ll only use it for exercise rather than transportation because everyone I know who uses a bike for transit accepts theft as an eventual certain.

If the US actually wants to reduce carbon emissions, prosecuting bike theft (and making cycling safer in general) is low hanging fruit. To the extent that carbon reduction requires behavioral change, cycling is (anecdotally) a behavioral change people actually really want to make, but US cities make it harder and more expensive than it needs to be.

To take public transit in my city costs $1200 a year. Even though I've had a bike stolen once every 3 or 4 years over the last quarter century, it's still a hell of a lot cheaper than the next cheapest transportation option by a wide margin.

Agreed even with stolen bikes the math works out. I have 2 types of bikes -- a beater that I'm ok getting stolen once a year or so for the convenience of feeling ok locking it anywhere, and others that I would never leave unattended in the city but use for exercise, commute, or offroad recreation.

> There's a dollar value threshold that the police use when deciding whether to investigate a theft.

That's disgustingly cynical. With the possible exception of some cargo bikes, I would guess the cost of a bike correlates strongly with how easily its owner can cope with its loss.

Maybe, but it might be inversely correlated. I have an expensive bike, but I also have the means to replace it if stolen. When I was younger and had less disposable income, the theft of my less expensive bike would have been more devastating.

We have special laws in most places for the theft of automobiles. Prior to that, there were special laws for the theft of horses (with pretty steep penalties, as I understand).

I see no reason why bikes should be exempt.

They’re exempt because big auto likes to remove competition.

For means of transportation in general. Or to be even more general: value of an item + how much time it costs to replace it at say 100$/hour + potential missed work/opportunities/meetings at say 1000$/day.

Stealing a bike (or a scooter or other means of transportation) is just a very damaging crime. I think police should be pro-active catching thieves (that if setting prop bikes to steal and catching the takers). Instilling some fear in the thieves' would be a huge progress.

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