BIKE THEFT

Thing about bike theft, cops don't take it seriously. I guess it's because there are so many and it is so easy to hide or alter them. My son once cut lawns and saved his money for a new one. A week later, it was stolen. We reported it, of course. About a year later, a boy ratted out another boy. He had taken it apart to use for spare parts. We recovered something like the seat and pedals. The boy's parents did not seem particularly affected by any of it. The father commended me for being calm, but I just recognized futility when I met it.

Yes, people are charming. The police find so many crimes beneath their dignity--one wonders what, in fact, they actually do, when they are not racing one another across town to the doughnut shop.

NPR had a piece on bike theft in Amsterdam, I think. They mentioned that the locks the bikers carried were often heavier than the bikes themselves.

When I was in college, vandalism was not uncommon. If they couldn't steal the bike, they just kicked the front wheel into a U shape. Some people have too much free time.

They don't have to race across town in my city. We have a donut shop on every corner and at least 3 police stations have one across the street.

I'm sure they thank god for Tim Horton and Coffee Time every day.

By the way, that visual image is from my past. One day, in a small city in which i lived, my friend and i were obliged to pull over as two police cruisers roared across town from east to west, with lights and sirens going.

We recognized one of the policemen--he had gone to school with friends of ours. About five minutes later, we arrived at a diner on the west side of town. Two cruisers were parked out front, and two cops were sitting at the counter, talking and laughing with one another. One of them was the officer we had recognized when we had been obliged to pull to the side of Main Street to let them roar past us.

We had a recue wagon driver living in the apartments a few years ago. When it was time for him to come home we could hear his siren just before he came on the property, even if he just came home for a fifteen minute break.

CBC had another excellent program this morning on this topic. I have always experienced difficulty linking their audio archives, so i have sent them an email to ask their assistance. If i am able, i will link their programs later.

The burden of the program today is that the police don't care. The woman interviewed told of an incident in which a group of people had taken advantage of a woman's offer to provide a garage for their bikes. Burglars very carefully disabled the automatic opener (to prevent the noise of the device from alerting anyone) and stole all of the bicycles. Six months later, a woman saw a man on her bike, confronted him in a crowd and retreived her bike. She also bullied him into giving her his name and cell phone number (it eventually proved that he had given her the correct information!). She called the police . . . and the police didn't care. She had to harrass the police until they took action.

The woman being interviewed also explained that stolen bikes and bike parts go exclusively to bike shops that are willing to sell stolen goods. She stated that bicycle enthusiasts know which stores these are. She stated that these stores have been identified to the police . . . and the police don't care.

Quite a surprising program. If i can link it later, i will.