A mate of mine had his bike stolen in the winter of 1979, it was found the next day with bits missing. Not wanting to bother his, ahem, insurance company, he went to a weel kent bike broker and found all the bits needed in a one stop shop.
Over here (US) because the engine has an ID the transmission, chassis - stealing a car - and then reselling it here - is - I would say - almost impossible - (but a lot are stolen by Mexican gangs and shipped across the border) I would "assume" motorcycles are the same.
To register the car in most states you need to supply the VIN - Vehicle Identification Number - and I would suspect - in that video - the same facts are dictating stripping it for parts - plus you can get more for the parts than the whole.
Wouldn't shops - as Conan mentioned - be wary of selling parts with an ID known to be stolen? Do the police keep a data base of stolen parts?
As an aside I was surprised how easy that lock on the fork was easy to break - among cars the Mercedes is known for having a very tough steering lock - hope the Germans extend that to BMW bikes ;-)
Bill, there is a major initiative being launched this year. Surprisingly, a lot of components aren't all individually marked, but even those that are get the marks ground out and altered. In the UK most top end 4x4's etc are stolen to order and many are out of the UK within days if not hours of being lifted. Many end up in Eastern Europe and the Middle East. In London, I would only ever have a boring slow car. No one pinched a Datsun Cherry for a `joy` ride on account there was little `joy` to be had in the first place :))
Heh. I have an acquaintance who grew up in Detroit in the fifties, when a lot of the criminals were still White. He was a lower-middle industrial kind of guy, and had a nice Norton. Someone he knew slightly stole the generator off of his bike, and then sold it back to him. I asked him why he put up with that, and his answer had something to do with disparity of force; that is, he was all alone, but the guy who stole the part had lots of thuggish friends.
P.s. He did not invoke Police intervention, as in his judgment, that might have made things worse for him at that time and in that place.
I understand his thinking. I got thwacked upside the head by a complete stranger a while back and made the mistake of reporting it to the people with badges. Oh, Good Lord! The responding Sheriff's Deputy treated me as if I were the perpetrator, instead of the complaining victim!
I mind the time, back in '83 or so, when I was all 'thwartships with my landlady.
It seems that one of her other tenants had just cleared out without notice, but left one of those Three-Cylinder Triumphs (Remember them?) just sitting there behind the building.
Some people of dubious virtue were working on a house across the alley, and one of them came up and asked for water. Sure, I said, there's the faucet, help yerself.
He noticed the bike, and asked about it. I was hoppin' mad at the landlady at the time, and told him that it had been abandonded by a previous tenant and I didn't much care about it, and neither did the landlady.
The next thing I knew, he grabbed that bike, walked it across the alley, loaded it into his truck, and took off with it. It was not until many years later that I first read the word, "gobsmacked", but that perfectly describes my reaction to what that guy did.
I came to my senses a little bit later and immediately hied maself off to the hardware store, to buy a stout lock and heavy hardened chain to protect my RD400 from such people as that guy.
On the way home, just a hundred yards from home, I got rear-ended by some bozo in a pickup truck, which event threw me forrard over the handlebars, and totalled the RD400.
The policeman who responded was rather rude. What is it with you guys?
JTG: I tried never to be rude:) I tried to perfect the knack of leaving someone with either positive or, at the worst, neutral thoughts about their encounter with yours truly - and my real speciality, if they absolutely deserved it, was to leave them pondering my parting words - the measure of their wit and sublety being how long it took them to realise I had just defined them as an arsehole!
The Triumph Triple was a stonking bike. A mate rode me around Belfast on one back in `72 and at all times, until we finally stopped, I had to brace against the torque and thought it would leave me behind, sat in the road.
I once had a garage job in Liverpool, greasing Mini's which in the late 60's had about 12 or 13 grease points. I rode a 250 BSA. One of the scouser mechanics saw my silencer was shot and fitted me a new one. It was still hot from the bike parked nearby that he'd removed it from. That little moral maze tested my 16 year old loyalty and sensibilities.
My most memorable bike ride was on the back of a Norton 750 Commando - a friend in the Army (1973) in Germany just bought one.
I am sitting on the back trying to hold on - but every time he shifted my butt slid precariously down the back of the seat - I remember to this day the wide eyed looks of the Open and Fiat drivers as we blew by them on those roads
Bill, my riding pal and former police colleague told me the day he started work as a recently qualified traffic division motorcyclist, he was presented with his bike for the duration - a brand new Norton Commando "Interpol". He couldn't believe his luck and rode off up the main drag singing "King of the Road" :)
Oh, yeah, Hog, rudeness just causes un-necessary fights.
I mind the time I applied for a job with The Phone Company, when that was Southern Bell. I spoke my best at the interview, and was told to go out and talk to that nice old lady out there.
I tellya, she was a sweetie-pie. She gave me the bad news in such a way that I felt better hearing the flush message from her than I had felt on some previous occasions when I actually got hired.
I tell you, I walked out of there with a spring in my step, full of love for all my fellow men, though I had just been told to go away, and not come back. That old lady was a social _expert_!
15 comments:
Nothing new there Hogday.
A mate of mine had his bike stolen in the winter of 1979, it was found the next day with bits missing.
Not wanting to bother his, ahem, insurance company, he went to a weel kent bike broker and found all the bits needed in a one stop shop.
They were all his original bits, of course.
Conan: I try telling this to the `young pretenders` - ad nauseum
Cyaaaaaants.
Sparkflash: Presactly! An expression I know well and even pronounce the same ;)
Over here (US) because the engine has an ID the transmission, chassis - stealing a car - and then reselling it here - is - I would say - almost impossible - (but a lot are stolen by Mexican gangs and shipped across the border) I would "assume" motorcycles are the same.
To register the car in most states you need to supply the VIN - Vehicle Identification Number - and I would suspect - in that video - the same facts are dictating stripping it for parts - plus you can get more for the parts than the whole.
Wouldn't shops - as Conan mentioned - be wary of selling parts with an ID known to be stolen? Do the police keep a data base of stolen parts?
As an aside I was surprised how easy that lock on the fork was easy to break - among cars the Mercedes is known for having a very tough steering lock - hope the Germans extend that to BMW bikes ;-)
Bill, there is a major initiative being launched this year. Surprisingly, a lot of components aren't all individually marked, but even those that are get the marks ground out and altered. In the UK most top end 4x4's etc are stolen to order and many are out of the UK within days if not hours of being lifted. Many end up in Eastern Europe and the Middle East.
In London, I would only ever have a boring slow car. No one pinched a Datsun Cherry for a `joy` ride on account there was little `joy` to be had in the first place :))
Heh. I have an acquaintance who grew up in Detroit in the fifties, when a lot of the criminals were still White. He was a lower-middle industrial kind of guy, and had a nice Norton. Someone he knew slightly stole the generator off of his bike, and then sold it back to him. I asked him why he put up with that, and his answer had something to do with disparity of force; that is, he was all alone, but the guy who stole the part had lots of thuggish friends.
P.s. He did not invoke Police intervention, as in his judgment, that might have made things worse for him at that time and in that place.
I understand his thinking. I got thwacked upside the head by a complete stranger a while back and made the mistake of reporting it to the people with badges. Oh, Good Lord! The responding Sheriff's Deputy treated me as if I were the perpetrator, instead of the complaining victim!
P.p.s. Oh, there's more!
I mind the time, back in '83 or so, when I was all 'thwartships with my landlady.
It seems that one of her other tenants had just cleared out without notice, but left one of those Three-Cylinder Triumphs (Remember them?) just sitting there behind the building.
Some people of dubious virtue were working on a house across the alley, and one of them came up and asked for water. Sure, I said, there's the faucet, help yerself.
He noticed the bike, and asked about it. I was hoppin' mad at the landlady at the time, and told him that it had been abandonded by a previous tenant and I didn't much care about it, and neither did the landlady.
The next thing I knew, he grabbed that bike, walked it across the alley, loaded it into his truck, and took off with it. It was not until many years later that I first read the word, "gobsmacked", but that perfectly describes my reaction to what that guy did.
I came to my senses a little bit later and immediately hied maself off to the hardware store, to buy a stout lock and heavy hardened chain to protect my RD400 from such people as that guy.
On the way home, just a hundred yards from home, I got rear-ended by some bozo in a pickup truck, which event threw me forrard over the handlebars, and totalled the RD400.
The policeman who responded was rather rude. What is it with you guys?
JTG: I tried never to be rude:) I tried to perfect the knack of leaving someone with either positive or, at the worst, neutral thoughts about their encounter with yours truly - and my real speciality, if they absolutely deserved it, was to leave them pondering my parting words - the measure of their wit and sublety being how long it took them to realise I had just defined them as an arsehole!
The Triumph Triple was a stonking bike. A mate rode me around Belfast on one back in `72 and at all times, until we finally stopped, I had to brace against the torque and thought it would leave me behind, sat in the road.
I once had a garage job in Liverpool, greasing Mini's which in the late 60's had about 12 or 13 grease points. I rode a 250 BSA. One of the scouser mechanics saw my silencer was shot and fitted me a new one. It was still hot from the bike parked nearby that he'd removed it from. That little moral maze tested my 16 year old loyalty and sensibilities.
My most memorable bike ride was on the back of a Norton 750 Commando - a friend in the Army (1973) in Germany just bought one.
I am sitting on the back trying to hold on - but every time he shifted my butt slid precariously down the back of the seat - I remember to this day the wide eyed looks of the Open and Fiat drivers as we blew by them on those roads
Bill, my riding pal and former police colleague told me the day he started work as a recently qualified traffic division motorcyclist, he was presented with his bike for the duration - a brand new Norton Commando "Interpol". He couldn't believe his luck and rode off up the main drag singing "King of the Road" :)
Oh, yeah, Hog, rudeness just causes un-necessary fights.
I mind the time I applied for a job with The Phone Company, when that was Southern Bell. I spoke my best at the interview, and was told to go out and talk to that nice old lady out there.
I tellya, she was a sweetie-pie. She gave me the bad news in such a way that I felt better hearing the flush message from her than I had felt on some previous occasions when I actually got hired.
I tell you, I walked out of there with a spring in my step, full of love for all my fellow men, though I had just been told to go away, and not come back. That old lady was a social _expert_!
Or, as I'm sure you know,
"Softly, softly, catchee monkey."
Sadly, it seems that policemen in my country these days are recruited from people with 2-digit IQs who may well have bad steroid habits.
Oh, Bobby Peel, where are you, now that we really need you?
Thanks for sharing, great video
Post a Comment