- New York, NY
- Chicago, IL
- Boston, MA
- Philadelphia, PA
- San Jose, CA
- Los Angeles and San Francisco (tie)
- Seattle, WA
- San Diego, CA; Portland, OR and Washington, DC (tie)
Thursday, June 14, 2007
Top bike theft cities
Kryptonite has posted their annual Top 10 cities for bike theft list for 2006. According to Kyrptonite, the top 10 bike theft cities are:
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I always think numbers like these are pretty meaningless, since they don't necessarily take into account all of the right variables. While I see a lot of postings for stolen bikes in Portland, 90% of those are either unlocked or cable locked bikes, 9% are house/garage/apartment break-in thefts, and the other 1% are properly U-locked bikes in a public place that were sawed or jacked apart.
ReplyDeleteGreat cities for cycling, like Portland and Eugene, probably tend to have higher theft rates because you get many more less-experience cyclists who use junky locks or use their locks improperly. Just like higher numbers of cyclist accidents, it can indicate that you have a lot more people doing the activity and not that it's more dangerous.
P. Squiddy - you are absolutely right - more bikes = more theft by virtue that there are more bikes to steal. This is why theft numbers are so high on college campuses, too. There are a ton of bikes on campuses around the world. Thieves know this and target those areas.
ReplyDeleteYou are also right that a lot of bikes are not locked or not locked properly. That's the whole point of doing the list - to draw some attention to what can happen if you don't lock and lock properly. Anything that gets people thinking about securing their bike is a good thing. We want everyone to keep what is theirs and just piss off thieves all over the place.
Fritz - thanks for helping to pass the word about properly locking!