Bicycles already have a serial number under crankshaft.
All am saying is for either government or manufacturer to issue a standardized plastic card to indicate ownership. Doesn’t even have to have a name on it. Just serial number and bike description or whatever. So whoever steals your bike will have to steal the card as well making it significantly harder.
Unless there’s a way to verify authenticity, which would require central registration of some sort (good luck with that), such a card would be easily faked. It’d impact legit owners more than actual thieves, since many people would probably lose theirs at some point.
Central registration exists already. The two big ones are Project 529 and Bike Index. I highly recommend them. Bike theft is down in Vancouver even while ridership has skyrocketed.
Bicycles already have a serial number under crankshaft.
All am saying is for either government or manufacturer to issue a standardized plastic card to indicate ownership. Doesn’t even have to have a name on it. Just serial number and bike description or whatever. So whoever steals your bike will have to steal the card as well making it significantly harder.
Unless there’s a way to verify authenticity, which would require central registration of some sort (good luck with that), such a card would be easily faked. It’d impact legit owners more than actual thieves, since many people would probably lose theirs at some point.
Central registration exists already. The two big ones are Project 529 and Bike Index. I highly recommend them. Bike theft is down in Vancouver even while ridership has skyrocketed.
You might be right, but bike theft is rampant and needs to be stopped. Especially as we are looking to get over climate problems.
Why can’t they be locked or chained?
Those only delay theft by dozen or so minutes. Most people don’t have garage to leave they bikes in.
Or just forge it.
You can have a “public key/private key” system, so the code on the card is matched with but is not the same as the code on the bike.