There was good news for the industry this week as it was revealed motorcycles and scooter theft had fallen over the past 12 months.
Latest figures reveal that reported bike thefts totalled 27,000 for 2018, bringing the number of machines stolen broadly back in line with the figure for 2016, but encouragingly well below 2017’s spike of 34,000 reported thefts; proof, perhaps, that the tougher approach from the police, in pursuing and knocking off the criminals riding stolen scooters, seems to be working.
Early figures suggest that this downward trend appears to be continuing into 2019, too, although stolen-bike recovery lags behind. Over the past five years 79,228 bikes, worth more than £54.5 million, disappeared and were never seen again.
Of those that were recovered, a further 10,400 machines were either damaged, found in a disassembled state, and/or were written off by their insurers as a result.