View Single Post
  #5   Report Post  
Old August 5th 10, 10:55 AM posted to uk.transport.london
Paul Paul is offline
external usenet poster
 
First recorded activity at LondonBanter: Jul 2009
Posts: 175
Default Derisory sentences for cycle thieves

On 5 Aug, 08:00, Arthur Figgis wrote:
On 04/08/2010 23:14, Mizter T wrote:







On Aug 4, 10:38 pm, Basil *wrote:
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standa...e-23863285-.do


"One man was recently fined more than £1,000 for handling stolen goods."


A grand! They'd only have to sell 10 or twenty bikes to make that back..


Indeedy. As the Hammersmith copper quoted in the article says, "Pedal
cycle theft appears to have become the crime of choice for many low-
end criminals because of the quick reward and low risk of being
caught", before going on to say that they're trying to do something
about it.


Part of the problem is that there are enough people in London who're
quite willing to buy 'second hand' bicycles which they know full well
are stolen - they're not all being shipped off to eastern Europe by
any means. It's such a scumbaggy thing to do, stealing a bicycle, that
most basic of conveyance - that said, the bikes that are being
targeted are hardly basic ones (e.g. ultra-light and ultra-expensive
carbon fibre frames etc). There's undoubtedly something to be said for
having an unflashy steed that doesn't turn eyes.


Is there also an element of no-one caring about crime involving bikes -
instead people just drone on about having once seen a cyclist
slaughtering wimmin-n-children on the pavement, or - even worse - the
time a car had to give way at a junction because a cyclist was on the
/road/, rather on the pavement where "it's safer, innit"?

--
Arthur Figgis * * * * * * * * Surrey, UK- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -


It would be nice if it was just "once" that you could see a cyclist on
the pavement, going through red lights etc. But it happens on a daily
basis. On my daily walk from Kings Cross tube to my office on York
Way, you quite often see cyclists on the pavment going towards Kings
Cross, because York Way is a one way street at the point, and to get
to Kings Cross using the road would require them to use the long way
round via Wharfdale Road, Caledonian Road and Grays Inn Road. Perhaps
that is why they also regularly also go shoot through the red lights
at the junction of Wharfdale Road and York Way.