On 3/8/2017 1:00 PM, sms wrote:
Yesterday morning I was up in San Francisco for an ABAG (Association of
Bay Area Governments) meeting as part of my city council duties. The
main topics, as always, were housing and transportation. There is this
dream by many that if only we build high-density housing very close to
major employers, that the employees will choose to live there and ride a
bicycle to work, solving the traffic problems without building any
transit or roads. LOL.

One representative brought up the issue of safe bicycle parking and said
that in many place if you leave your lights, or other accessories, on
your bicycle, parked outside, if the whole bicycle isn't stolen your
lights are certain to be gone.

I think we can guess which representative brought up the worries about
lights being stolen! He posts here pretty frequently!


I think that security is one issue people won't even bicycle to a local
store. I know that when my daughter went to UC Santa Cruz and parked her
bicycle in town, she'd come out and pieces were gone. Odd pieces like
half of a mirror. Someone walking around with an Allen wrench stealing
halves of Mirrycles?!

Personally I always remove my headlight when going into a building, but
the tail light would be difficult to remove every time unless it's
attached to a piece of rear luggage.

Personally I've never removed by headlights when going into a building.
But then, mine are bolted on, just like my saddle, derailleur, brakes,
etc. etc.

I understand that some locations involve higher risks. For long term
parking at work, I took my bike into the building, and in general I try
to find relatively safe places to leave my bike. For example, when
parking it at the mall, it's in a place where it's out of sight and
cable locked to secure pipes. All I've ever had stolen were two
cyclometers. (That's in 45 years of avid adult riding and utility
biking, in something like 12 countries and 47 U.S. states.)

But if accessory theft is a problem, there are secure fasteners or other
tricks to dissuade thieves with allen wrenches.

--
- Frank Krygowski