An initiative has been launched to tackle the rise in motorcycle crime, which has become a nationwide epidemic with more than 30,000 motorcycles and scooters stolen in 2017, up from around 8000 in 2012.
Bikersunited.co.uk is a national stolen motorcycle database where victims of theft can report their stolen motorcycle or scooter, alerting other bikers in real-time to a theft in their area. The site isn’t just for bike theft victims; users can sign up to know when suspicious activity or a stolen bike is reported in their area.
Once a bike is listed on Bikers United it’s fed into Google and automatically shared on social media channels.
Bikers United has been set up by the founder of Visordown, Ben Cope, who is frustrated at the rise in bike crime and damage it is causing the bike industry.
“While stolen motorcycle groups do exist on social networks such as Facebook, they are unstructured, hard to navigate and often in private networks,” said Cope.
”Bikers United is a platform for bikers to publicly share the details of their stolen bike and in doing so, increase the amount of visibility the theft gets. It also alerts other bikers to a theft in their area so that they can be extra vigilant.”
Suspicious activity almost always precedes a crime, for example gangs of mopeds circling an area or individuals checking out a bike before stealing it.
Cope continued: “Witnesses to these incidents may not feel these small acts are worthy of reporting to the police or Crimestoppers but the BikersUnited.co.uk system enables them to upload images and log any activity that when collated will be available on a map and help bikers in different regions understand the pattern and types of bike crime.
“As bikers, we’re able to spot these criminals better than most other members of the public. These small snippets of information will be collated on Bikersunited.co.uk and supplied to the police to help them identify individuals and pin them down to a specific location and time.”
Cope concluded: “As an individual, it’s hard to tackle bike crime. However as a group our collective input can make a difference.”
https://twitter.com/bikersuniteduk
https://www.facebook.com/bikersuniteduk/