Bicycle 'LoJacks' used in bait bicycles to catch hard core bicycle thiefs

[Elmore Furth]

If you build it, they will come.

As cyclists from New York to San Francisco take advantage of new commuting infrastructure, thieves appear to be taking a growing interest in two-wheeled travel as well, riders and advocates report. The response by some cities and local law enforcement agencies has been a kind of high-tech cat-and-mouse game, one involving bait bikes,

In San Francisco, the police are working with advocates to develop a series of stings this summer using hidden transmitters mounted on bikes. “It’s a lot like the drug war,” said Marc Caswell of the San Francisco Bike Coalition, an advocacy group. “We need to get the higher-ups.”

“The very first bike I built, by the time I retired it, it had been stolen 33 times,” said Jason Cecchettini, whose company, Bait Bike, began selling radio-tracking technology for bikes to law enforcement agencies in 2002. Since then, the police and college campuses across the country have bought the systems, Mr. Cecchettini said, at a cost of $7,000 each, not including the price of the bicycle, which is usually valued above the level for grand larceny in a given state.

The tracking system is similar to the LoJack technology used to locate stolen cars. However, unlike LoJack, the trackers are primarily hidden on bikes — as well as other items, like laptop computers — to catch thieves, not to recover property. In Sacramento County alone, the use of such bikes has resulted in 150 to 200 felony arrests, according to Sgt. Todd Deluca of the Sheriff’s Department, which has been using the bikes since 2004. “When we started, I thought we’d get kids stealing each others’ bikes,” said Sergeant Deluca. “But what we’ve found is that we’ve gotten some pretty heavy-duty criminals.”


Efforts on Bicycling Also Attract Thieves

[cliffordu]

1. Big money in top end parts and frames.

Huge.

[virginia mountainman]

2. I like this method too..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8qj4rkfINo

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

3. They ought to just plant C4 explosives in bikes.

If the bike comes up stolen just remotely blow it up.
I suspect bike theft would fall sharply.

[Travis_0004]

4. What if you had the front brake set to go off when you hit a button.

Let them build up some speed, then apply the front brake for them. I would imagine it would be easy enough to catch up to them.