Stolen Bikes - Does anyone care!

km991148

So after getting my beater nicked.. is there any point reporting it?

It was taken from a luas stop with at least another bike (another guy on the same tram as me). Called Luas helpline, and they will put in a request to hold the cctv footage, but can I expect anything?

Will prob go to Rathmines Garda stn on the way home and report it anyway.. but I am sick of this feeling of being robbed in Dublin (3rd time now - and I aint completely careless!) and not being able to do anything about it!

I know its been discussed bfore.. but I would hapily take a day of work to go on a vigilante style mission (armed with bats/sticks/snooker balls/other creative weapons here..)

bah!

Hungrycol

Very unlikely you'll get it back. There seems to be a bike black hole where all the stolen ones go. Reporting it will make it a statistic of it and perhaps if it's seen by a problem statistic for the Gardai they might try to do more about it.

I run a bike to work scheme in my work place and marvel at the crappy locks people buy, not saying yours is, just, please people lock it like you borrowed a gangland bosses prized Carbon Colnago.

07Lapierre

the guards now have the power to use teenagers to buy Alcohol in off- licenses to check that the off-license is not seling alcohol to under-age teeagers.

Maybe the time has come to set up bike "sting operations"?.

Beasty

If you are looking to claim under an insurance policy, you probably will be required to report the theft to the Gardai. I addition, as Hungrycol said, it then becomes a statistic. The advantage, I guess, is that the more that are reported, the more that something may be done about it, with possibly safer locking areas and more vigilant members of the public

Is it likely to make that much difference in terms of getting stolen bikes back? - almost certainly not if the experiences of the posters on here are anything to go by

thundercatho

I reported my bike to Guards last week, within 20 mins I got a phone call saying they know who it was(not going into details). Now I went one step futher by providing them a copy of the CD and printouts of the person who stole it when I reported it. I receivd a letter in the post on Tuesday thinking it was penalty point but it was a letter from the guard saying that they were investigating it. Now i know there is a very very very slim chance that i will get it back but if you dont report it then you never will.
On another note, if you see someone cyling your bike and you try take it back off that person, it would be better to have a file to say that it was stolen, incase a guard mistakes you for trying to steal it... So yes report it

paddyduc

I Had the guards on ot me last week trying to find the owner of a bike that i sold which they recovered. It's frustrating that they recover bikes that are unreported and the reported ones are seldom recovered.

Cranky Mc Funhouse

Sorry to hear that i hope you get it back. As someone who has had two bikes robbed in town i would agree that there seems little or no recourse for the victim, even cctv is no help unless the thief is known to the local gardai and didnt cover his face at the time. The sheer volume of bikes around dublin city centre which have been repainted is amazingly high so im guessing this is how a lot of stolen bikes end up. I invested in some letter punches so no amount of respraying will remove my name from the frame.

km991148

yeah.. am going to go report it anyway.. but it sucks. I know there are many more 'serious' crimes, but the amount of bikes being nicked is crazy.
And it appears there is no attempt to crack down on it. I didnt have the best locks, but I though it was strong enough, and parked at the luas stop with the most cctv (how naieve!).

Now its not about the loss its self, but the sheer inconvenience as well.. plus I could see myself using the luas stop often enough after moving jobs, so I will need a nother bike + better locks and even then it looks like it will be an ongoing thing...

Anyway.. had to get the obligatory 'fu(k me bikes been nicked' threads out the way..

Maybe it will be a good thing, as I will cycle the full 15kms each day and shift my lazy ass!

Cheers all for putting up with a moan !

ED E

I think its partially down to the gards attitudes too. Example:
On Kildare St today, two gards stood there and watched as three cyclists rolled straight through a red ahead of me. Cyclists breaking lights is a big problem yet they let it go on unchecked in front of them. Hardly gonna go tracking down bikes now are they?

Diarmuid

Lethal_Bullet wrote: »

Cyclists breaking lights is a big problem yet they let it go on unchecked in front of them. Hardly gonna go tracking down bikes now are they?

Now I'm as critical as the next person about red light jumping. But bringing it up in a conversation about bike stealing is a total non sequitur. Someone jumps a red light, what the result? 99.99% (or somewhere in the region) of the time, nothing. In fact, the less time cops are stalking out red lights to catch red light jumpers , the more time they can spend investigating thieves.

cdaly_

km991148 wrote: »

Maybe it will be a good thing, as I will cycle the full 15kms each day and shift my lazy ass!

Do it! 15km is a nice handy 40 min commute. Just need a shower at work tho...