I was talking with some visitors from the Netherlands and somehow we stated talking about transportation, and bikes, and ultimately bike theft. They were of the firm opinion that bike thievery in the Netherlands exists on an epic scale seen nowhere else on the planet.
Is this true. Is bike theft in the Netherlands really that bad?
I doubt it is as high as the number of bike thefts reported in China.
“About 4 million bicycles are reported missing every year, according to the Ministry of Public Security.”
Seems to me that anywhere they have a lot of bicycles will have a lot more incidences of bicycle theft than anywhere that they don’t have a lot of bicycles.
Captain Obvious signing off. 
Recognizing the gaps in my knowledge, I’ll leave China out of this. But in the Western world, the Netherlands appears to be a bit of a standout with respect to their love for bicycling. If you’re in some small town in the Netherlands on a rainy Sunday, you’ll see dozens of people out on their bicycles. And my impression was they mostly weren’t running errands, they were doing this just for fun (for values of ‘fun’ that are beyond my understanding, despite loving cycling as I do).
My WAG is that you’d get more stealing of bicycles in the Netherlands than you’d see in most places, simply because there are a lot of bikes, and a lot of people who want bikes, compared to most other places.
I grew up in The Netherlands and had bikes for about 12 years there. I had one stolen in that time, and that one was left unlocked. Where I’m from occasional theft is not unheard of, but it’s not on an epic scale. This wasn’t Amsterdam, though, but a small provincial town.
Casual Googling by this mof in Geman-language sources yielded: 15 million bicycles in the Netherlands, 750,000 bicycle thefts in 2006, repeated government publicity campaigns.
That is pretty epic theftwise.
I would say it’s pretty common. I have had many bicycles stolen over the years. Stolen by junkies if the lock was cheap or stolen by professionals with a van if it was a good lock.
“More than any other place on earth” depends on your definition: do you mean relatively? I think in the UK (where I live now) it’s almost as bad, only more of the professionals stealing bikes. I’ve also had two bikes completely trashed here for no reason. I’ve never even heard of that happening in the Netherlands.
My rule of thumb is: make sure the lock is worth more than the bike. That way it’s just not worth stealing it 
My cinematic research suggests that it’s a pretty bad problem in Italy, as well.
After two years in China, I got 3 bikes lifted, if that means anything. There was a whole culture, at least among the foreigners, of buying new bikes and ‘dinging them up’ to make them look less desirable to thieves, without actually reducing the goodness of the bike in question.
There seem to be lots of places that claim to be the bike theft capital of the world. Eugene, Oregon gets a somewhat undeserved bad rap in the States. I’ve seen U-locks that have the fine print “Guarantee not valid in New York City or Eugene, Oregon.”
My thoughts exactly. Huh, you can make smiley links. I did not know that.
Yeah, but that’s the same problem as China, isn’t it? Eugene and Portland are known for their heavy bike saturation.
I’ve had a bunch stolen and pretty much everyone I know has had it happen. Most bike thefts are what most Americans (with their 3000 dollar carbon racebikes) would consider clunkers and hardly any of these thefts get reported. I never have… Most people just curse and go buy a second hand bike for 80-100 euros.
Huh?
The entire population of Holland is less than 17 million people, according to wiki
So it looks like almost every single person owns a bike. Okay, that’s surprising, but not impossible.
Sooo… if almost a million are stolen, that means there must be a huge number of thieves.
That’s also surprising–and seems impossible.
But what’s even more surprising is that after stealing almost a million bikes, the thieves presumable sell them to almost a million customers.
That means maybe 10 per cent of the entire population is involved in stolen bike dealing.
And since 10 X 10 =100, then over the course of 10 years, every single person in the entire country has committed a crime.
Dangerous people, them Dutch.
But they put mayonaise on their french fries, so they can’t be all bad. 
I guess I’m being whooshed, but clearly the 750k bicycle thefts are not committed by 750k thieves; as was mentioned upthread, the vast majority of the thefts would be committed by professional teams with vans or by junkies; either of these types of thieves would normally be able to steal hundreds of bikes on a yearly basis.
…and they are not necessarily selling them to Dutch bicyclists. They may be loading them in trucks and taking them to other countries, or even selling them for scrap metal.
I know that while we were in Amsterdam, we were surrounded by bikes, but there were very few fancy ones.
aw, don’t feel whooshed…I’m just trying to be funny.I know that many of the thieves use vans and steal, say 20 bikes a day.
Soo… 750 000 divided by 20 is 37,500 . Divide that by 300 days a year ('cause the poor bike theives need about 65 days off, to rest up from their hard work).
So now we’re only talking about 125 bike thieves each day. That’s a number I can get my little head around.
But you still have the interesting question of what they do with all those stolen bikes. At 80 euros each, that’s not the kind of money that attracts international cartels from South America.
So I assume that the thieves sell the bikes right on the sidewalk, or on the Dutch ebay or craig’s list or whatever. Which means a lot of private individuals are buying stolen bikes.
It must be a national hobby.
But mayo is still better than ketchup. Even if ya have to steal it .
I work with a bunch of Dutch expats (in the US) and apparently it is considered just the cost of living in some cities. Each of the four people I was lunching with when we discussed this had lost at least one bike. People by used bikes all the time, and even new bikes are mostly of the <100 euro variety. Don’t bother to report to the police. There is no investigation, it’s just a waste of time.
I am sure a good number of the used bikes for sale are stolen. There is no way to know. There is no registration of bikes (no serial numbers) and there is no appetite for a registration system that would make it more difficult to sell stolen bikes.
The belief is that both junkies and professionals contribute. Apparently some theives can crack some pretty high-end locks.
In some cities it isn’t unusual at all to be ‘offered’ a bike for 20 euros by a junky if you’re walking around late at night. The first x times you say no, but after having your bike stolen a few times it is tempting to become part of the problem. I’ve never done this btw, not yet at least. A lot of these stolen bikes are now probably sold online. I severely doubt they get taken abroad, most bikes here are clunkers.
I worked for a month in Amersfoort and I remember discussing bikes with my coworkers. I was told that many Dutch people have two bikes; one crappy one that they use around town, are happy to leave locked somewhere, would not be devastated if was stolen and would probably replace with a stolen bike when it is stolen and one really nice one that they keep safe in their home and use for special longer bike rides and would not be left around town.
Any Dutch people around to confirm?