The Lazy Randonneur: A false sense of security...

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

A false sense of security...

5 comments:

Raiyn said...: Not so much, all of the locks I see in that photo appear to be intact. Abandoned perhaps, but certainly intact.; May 14, 2008 3:20 AM
Vik said...: My title wasn't referring to the fact the locks were broken. Rather a pile of rusty weathered locks, probably costing well over $200, locking nothing to a bike rack reminded me of the security theater I go through every time I fly. They also reminded me of all the gym memberships [this photo was taken outside the YMCA] that get purchased every New Year's and never used. People buying the idea of health and not the reality of it.

These locks aren't locking anything up and look like they haven't moved all winter - probably buried under the snow for 6 months.

Returning to the perspective you have on the photo - a couple of the locks were reasonably decent quality, but quite a few were those low end u-locks that would break if a bike thief spoke harshly to them! In that respect I think they do provide a false sense of security for folks locking up their bikes.; May 14, 2008 6:53 AM
Anonymous said...: Roadies don't like the weight of the locks, so they leave them "parked" at frequent destinations...work, gym, coffee shop, etc. They are mostly cheap locks because they don't want to buy 3-4 expensive locks.; May 19, 2008 11:19 AM
Anonymous said...: While I am not absolutely sure from the photo, I think that at least one of the locks (the Kryptonite) is susceptible to being defeated in a really embarrassing way.

My guess is that the locks were just abandoned there after the owners found out about the exploit. That's what I'd do - be fucking annoying and unload all of my defective Kryptonite locks on one poll. Forget about the recall.; May 19, 2008 6:00 PM
amoeba said...: The locks should be tagged with a weatherproof warning label that if left there say for a month without the label being removed, the locks should then be cut-off and recycled.

A lot of abandoned locks and bicycles prevent the proper use of cycle parking facilities.

The above process should be repeated periodically, say every six months.

Apparently, this is done in parts of mainland Europe. It is an excellent idea.; June 08, 2008 3:17 PM

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)