Originally Posted by
Unreasonable
Sounds like a good order to me.
Exactly, let the police be the ones to dictate how you proceed.
Originally Posted by
Unreasonable
Well... come on. If I were in the situation where I was figuring out if the bike was truly abandoned, I wouldn't be so thick as to not check the dumpster (assuming I didn't hear him in it), especially if it looked like the bike belonged to someone who was homeless (maybe based on other things such as bags of bottles/cans around it.
You might check the dumpster, but how many people are really going to check the dumpster to see if there is someone in it dumpster diving? I think a lot of people seeing a bike by a dumpster are going to assume that it's either been abandoned or thrown away and that it is now "fair game."
Obvious exception as you noted that if there are bags of bottles and/or cans near the bike.
Originally Posted by
Unreasonable
I'm trying to justify taking something that one can, through the proper procedures, determine was left for anybody who wanted it to take. A lot of great things people get are by finding them abandoned. One man's trash is another man's treasure, and all that.
IF something is truly abandoned I have no problem with someone who can use it doing so. But to just assume that something is abandoned is theft.
Originally Posted by
Unreasonable
Much as my posts may lead you to believe, I'm not a moron. I don't assume the homeless would sleep on the bikes, but I also don't think they would leave their bike a block down the road while they sleep in shelter. It's the logical thinking part I suggested - if you see a bike, and a man sleeping a short distance away... it's probably his. That's obvious.
I can see shelters wanting to avoid fights not allowing the homeless to bring their bikes (or other personal property) into or onto the shelter's property. Down here in the Tampa/St. Pete are we've had so many problems with the homeless such as urinating/defecating in public, sleeping in public parks, panhandling, etc. that in the last few years more and more laws aimed at "combating" the homeless problem have been passed. Such as no sleeping on public benches or in public parks, no panhandling, etc.
It was so bad at one point that when the homeless gathered outside of city hall to sleep it looked like garbage day pick up. And at a local park (where the local bus system also uses as a major transfer point) it was wall-to-wall homeless people. Sleeping on whatever patch of grass that they could find.
Originally Posted by
Unreasonable
If
Seems like a fairly rare situation.
I know I didn't quote everything you said, but I can't imagine that by using realistic thinking you would take a bike that belonged to somebody. I don't just go around looking for unlocked bikes to take, but if I find one that's been left in a ditch off of a road, with no visible damage (i.e. not left after a crash) and nobody around... I'm not going to think somebody keeps it there while they go about their daily business.
Uh, several years ago (right around 1999/2000) I was going to a local pet shop via the public bus. A gal who was waiting for the bus at a bus stop to go downtown to pay her and her boyfriends electric bill. Had seen the commercials on the local TV stations about taking your bike with you on the bus.
So she rode her boyfriends bike to the bus stop expecting to be able to put it on the rack. Imagine her surprise when she found out (too late) that she needed a permit (they've since done away with that program but have kept the racks) to do so. She was going to leave her boyfriends bike under some bushes near the bus stop. If she had done so, how long after the bus pulled away do you think it would have lasted before someone "found" themselves an "abandoned" bike? Before the driver could pull away I asked him if it would be okay if I loaded and unloaded the gals bike as I had the required (and still do) permit. He said that that would be fine, so that's what we did.
Also in the above situation if someone had "found" the gals bike and called the cops being as it hadn't been stolen and abandoned it would not have yet been reported to the police as such and whomever "found it" and took it would now be guilty of theft themselves.
The bottom line is that while most of us here would not keep our bike in a ditch and "go about our daily business" doesn't mean that someone else might not do so. Particularly
IF said ditch is in an area that doesn't get much traffic. So if one finds what they think is an abandoned bike call the police and ask them what they want you to do. Do
NOT assume that it has been "abandoned" and take it home and as an after thought call the police.
Take out your cell phone and call the police right then and there do
NOT wait until one gets home to do so.