BikeBiz Bicycle and cycling retail news
The Design Council, on behalf of the Home Office, is calling on cyclists to give five minutes of their time to take part in a survey on resedential bicycle theft.
The majority of research into bicycle theft to date has concentrated on theft in public places, predominantly from on-street locations. Little research has concentrated on bicycles stolen in or around the victim’s home. However, estimates from the British Crime Survey demonstrate that the majority of bicycle thefts occur in the immediate vicinity of the victim’s home – a figure believed to be near two thirds of all bike theft.
Working with the results of its survey, the Design Council will try to help bicycle owners keep their bikes secure at home. To do this they are launching a design competition in the New Year to catalyse UK businesses to innovate solutions to secure residential bike storage.
The Design Council will fund development of the best ideas and help to get the designs into the market in the hope that residential bike theft will become harder to achieve for theives.
Bicycles are described by the Home Office as a ‘hot product’, meaning they make the list of items most desireable to thieves.
The BikeOff-run survey, which takes only a matter of minutes to complete, can be found here.
The survey will run over the Christmas period, between Monday 20th December 2010 and Monday 3rd January 2011.
