It’s 07:45 in the morning (GMT) on a Friday, and already 88 bicycles have been stolen in the UK. Around the world, 6,464 people have lost their beautiful bikes to thieves. How do I know this? Because British bike lock brand Litelok have made an interactive digital world map revealing in real time where bikes are being stolen all around the planet, that’s how.
The map zeros in on various hotspots and supplies some seriously shocking stats. I once had a locked bike nicked from right outside a busy police station in the middle of a weekday afternoon, and nothing whatsoever was ever done about it, but I’m still staggered at the numbers this tool reveals.
Once you open the dynamic graphic you can click on the UK, the US, Germany, France and the Netherlands, or have a look at the entire globe, and not only see where the theft hotspots are in each country, but also get up-to-date stats on exactly how many bikes have been stolen in the defined area on day (hour, even minute) you're looking at it.
Within each of the featured nations, a further breakdown is provided across the country’s major cities. In the UK, the numbers for London are nearly four times higher than the next hot spot (Birmingham) – which will shock absolutely no one, least of all Simon Munk from the London Cycling Campaign, who last month told Cycling Weekly that around 40,000 bicycles are stolen in the British capital every year, with only 2% ever being recovered.
Depressingly, you can actually watch the numbers creeping up while you have the screen open. As I write these words, I can see that a far too grand total of 13,657 bikes have been stolen around the world today, with 187 of those being lifted in the UK. Interestingly, the featured country with the highest number of thefts (at least today) is the Netherlands, with 917 bikes having been pinched by mid-afternoon on this random Thursday (two and a half times the amount that have been nicked in the United States).
Obviously, some degree of caution always needs to be exercised when it comes to reading and reporting on stats, with much depending on methodology used to harvest the figures, and the motivation of the people presenting the data. As a brand that makes high-performing lightweight bike locks, such as the angle-grinder resistant X1 D-lock, Litelok obviously have some skin the game here, but the map is interesting and revealing nonetheless, and it’s worth looking at how the graphic has been put together.
To make the map, Litelok are combining government crime statistics with insights from community engagement groups, and adding attempted theft data as reported by their own customers, in order to better reflect the nefarious activity of bike thieves and the locations where the crimes, or attempted crimes are taking place. They also appear to have factored in a percentage of thefts that go unreported.
In addition to the basic numbers, the map also provides an indication of the average financial loss suffered by the owners of the bikes, seasonal trends in thefts and the recovery rate. Again, it will come as no surprise to learn that Britain has a woeful recovery rate of 4%, with only France coming in lower (3%) among the featured nations.
The London Cycling Campaign has an open petition calling for more action on bike crime – this could be the perfect prompt to sign it.
For the record, the total number of bikes that have been stollen so far today, now that I’ve reached the end of this piece, is 6,635 and the dial keeps turning.
