Another story re: the prevalence of bike theft.
The Croydon Guardian reports that the insurance company Direct Line experimentally left some bikes unlocked in ten cities. Top of the theft league was Croydon, the borough in which I live, the bikes there disappearing within one hour. Manchester and Liverpool were close behind.
However, all may not quite be as it seems. Direct Line started the whole remote access insurance business by phone and online, based here in Croydon where they've always done most of their business. It follows that like me, they would know from local knowledge where to put the bikes for the best chance of theft much more than they would for the cities where they are not so familiar, There they'd have to rely on statistical information from any bike theft claims they'd received.
So perhaps Croydon isn't that bad after all, I've never had a bike theft attempt in 40 years here. When the police checked their stats for the division, bike thefts were down by 22% from the previous year, so any problem that we have is getting better, that's some reassurance.
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