An Amusement & Diversion for The Genteel Cyclist. Daily.

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

To catch a bike thief


This is pretty awesome: Officials at the University of Toronto have launched a program called "Bait Bike" in which they install GPS systems into high-end-ish bicycles, then lock them feebly to a campus bike rack.


They started the program last year, and caught four thieves in one day.

The low-jack system is like others being used in Europe; it's a bit spendy at $1,400 a pop, but you don't need to catch too many thieves before word spreads that there's a painful mousetrap attached to a half-dozen coveted bicycles.

When this program migrates south of the border, be sure to petition your congressional delegates to get your local bike thief a booking at Git-Mo.

Nevermind the Islamo-fascists. We wanna waterboard a few bike thieves... You be OK with that, Mr. Vice Prezdent?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

They tried this in the Netherlands a couple of years back. It netted I think 2 bike thieves before the bike went missing. Strangely enough as they were chasing thief number 3 the signal was lost when the bike appeared to be going over a bridge that crossed a river. The bike was never recovered and they didn't catch the thief, $1400 down the drain-