Comment by denton-scratch | Hacker News Reader

Comment by denton-scratch | Hacker News Reader

> because they are not major crimes

I don't understand this police attitude. A £600 bike is worth as much as a £600 diamond. But cops will definitely go after diamond thieves.

I reported a £2,000 ebike stolen; it had a GPS tracker, so I could locate the thing to a specific address. Their reply: "We will not be visiting the address. Do you know how many Ferraris are stolen in Birmingham every week?"

So because I can't afford a Ferrari, the cops won't even try to recover my transport.

A cheap bike is probably more valuable to a bike owner than a Ferrari is to a Ferrari owner; the Ferrari owner can just switch to driving around in his Lotus.

I would estimate a grand total of zero Ferraris are stolen in a median week in Birmingham so go and get this man's bike back.

Bike thefts help reinforce the idea that the police need additional funding. Solving bike thefts does not.

One could equally argue that diamond thefts or Ferrari thefts help reinforce that idea, and that solving them doesn't. So I don't buy that explanation.

Someone commented that the police think bikes are basically toys. I think that's closer; cops like powerful cars, utility-belts stuffed with nightsticks, handcuffs and tasers, and other "manly" metal shit. Bikes are for children, and for drug-dealers escaping down alleyways.

Yeah, it's frustrating because the monetary value of the object is not what determines whether the crime is major.

If I can't have a decent bike at all because it will be stolen like clockwork, the fact that I would lose a few hundred quid isn't the relevant aspect, it's that I'm forced into a degenerate way of being.

If you could affor a Ferrari, why would you live in Birmingham? ;0)

great question

How is that relevant?

I'm sure that a bike stolen from a large chain store would be investigated before a bike stolen from a member of the public would.

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