Bike theft is a serious problem in San Francisco. Now the police are using every tool they have to deal with the problem.
Self-study activity:
Watch the video and answer the questions below.
The activity is suitable for intermediate students.
1 What has been the increase in bike use in San Francisco between 2006 and 2013?
2 What does '4,000' refer to?
3 What device is installed in the bait bikes?
4 What is the aim of the stickers the police are giving away to bike owners?
5 How long has the anti-theft bike unit been operating for?
To check your answers, you can read the transcript below.
This is officer Mark Friedman from the San Francisco Police Department. He has a question for thieves.
Do you feel lucky, punk, do you?
Ok, especially for bike thieves.
Is this a bait bike?
Is it?
I don’t know, is it?
From Porland to New York bikes are big. Ridership here in San Francisco nearly doubled (1) between 2006 and 2013.
If we want people to get out and ride their bikes, they have to get out and ride without fear of them getting stolen.
But bike theft is also on the rise.
In 2012 it’s an estimate over 4,000 bikes were stolen (2) out of San Francisco.
As the Head of the Department Anti Theft Bike Unit, officer Friedman is using every tool he can to catch bike thieves, from posting locking tips on Twitter to putting loaded bait bikes on the street.
Is this one a bait bike? All of our bait bikes have GPS trackers (3) and if one of those bikes gets clipped, we are going to know about it, and we’re going to come after the person that took it.
Earlier this year officer Freeman and plain clothes police locked up this bait bike. It didn’t take long to lure potential criminals.
So, two people were interested in the bike almost immediately. At one point the lock was manipulated.
Moments later a suspect grabs the bike.
And there he goes… Oh, but look what happens next! Down goes the bike thief!
To get the bait bike message out, police are giving away these stickers that suggest that any bike could be loaded with a tracking device (4).
The whole idea is to let thieves know any bike at any time in the city of San Francisco could be one of our bait bikes, so if you steal a bike, you’d better believe we’re going to be coming for you.
And convicted bike thieves will likely end up on officer Friedman twitter feed.
I think shaming bike thieves is excellent. I’ll tweet mug shots to let people know that these people are stealing your bikes, these people are breaking into your homes. If you see these people, definitely call us because we’re going want to come talk to them.
The anti-bike theft unit is only a few months (5) into its operation, but officer Friedman says it is already making a dent.
Street level thefts in the last several weeks I know have been cut, so I’d like to think that’s attributed to the bike theft prevention programme and to the bait bike programme.
