Undercover footage has revealed how long it takes for a bike to be stolen in Dublin.
Last night's RTE Prime Time showed how a bike on one of Dublin's busiest streets was targeted within 40 minutes of being locked up. The RTE team locked a brand new electric bike on the corner of Parnell Street and King’s Inn Street.
The bike, while not top-of-the-range, was secured to a Sheffield bike stand, recognised as the highest standard of public bike-locking infrastructure, with the simple cable lock, in the full knowledge that the bike was less secure but less likely to be damaged in an attempted theft. In just 40 minutes, a gang tried to rip the bike off the stand.
Read more: Councillor calls for increased security after city centre bike theft
They walk away but return half an hour later with lookouts posted on the corners of the street. Then two of the members pull the bike free, destroying the lock in the process, in just a matter of seconds.
But just as they were about to make off with the bike, they were disturbed so they left it where it was. They did, however, quickly returned to take it.
And just like that, the bike that was secured on one of the busiest streets in Ireland was stolen in a little over an hour. The bike, which had a tracker attached to it, was taken across the north inner city, across Parnell Square and Merrion Square. It came to a stop along the Tolka river in Ballybough where it was sold.
The Dublin Cycling Campaign estimates that 20,000 bikes are stolen each year, far higher than the 5,000 bikes that are formally reported as missing. Campaign spokesperson, Una Morrision said: "We know that, of people whose bikes are stolen, 42% of those people – that’s nearly half – either stop cycling, never cycle again or reduce how much they cycle."
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