Every year there is in excess of 35,000 motorbikes stolen in the UK. The percentage of bike being recovered is extremely low, approximately one in five never being returned to their rightful owner. As it takes experienced thieves only 14 seconds, on average, to steal a bike you need to do everything possible to stop your bike becoming a statistic.
Security has to be a top priority for all motorbike owners, irrespective of the size, make or model of their machine as the motorbike thieves aren’t that fussy which bikes they steal as any relatively new model can be sold on the black market and for older machines be broken down and the parts sold for cash.
The main reason that motorbike theft is so proliferate is that it take just those 14 seconds for thieves to pick a bike up which has no enhanced security and put it into the back of a van and drive away, for the most part unnoticed by the authorities or the general public. Joy riders are also rather partial to helping themselves to unprotected motorbikes or scooters as it is so easy to do.
Using a common sense approach to where you park your bike can help to reduce theft, this may mean that you have to pay for parking in some towns and cities, but rather that than arrived back to find you have no bike at all.
Anther advantage of enhancing security is that many motorbike insurers will offer discounts off the premiums if your motorbike has approved enhanced security. The main word here is ‘enhanced’, although the insurance companies welcome preventative measures the ones you use have to be on the insurers ‘approved’ list to be offered the discounts. If you are unsure which security devices are approved, you simply have to phone the insurers and ask which they approve of.
Unfortunately some of the approved enhanced security is pretty expensive so you will have to decide whether the value of your motorbike warrants spending the money. Your own security measures may work but they may not get you a discount!
The more visible the security measures the more likely the thieves will pass your bike by and aim for one that has no visible signs of security. The most visible is probably a hefty cable locks, more especially if they are put round a sturdy anchor point concreted into the road and wrapped around as many parts of your bike as possible, not just the front tyre.
Disc locks pose little problem to professional motorbike thieves but may pose more of a problem to opportunist thieves, so they are better than not using anything at all. Many bike manufacturers and insurance companies recommend marking your bike with VIN, vehicle identification number, and your postcode. Mark as many components of your bike as your can, if your bike is stolen to be broken down for spares you may not get your entire bike back but it will help the authorities track the thieves.
Any enhanced security measures you make should be told to your motorcycle insurance company, if they give you a discount off your insurance premiums so much the better!
post by : Tom Jones
