After reading some discussion about it here, I played the 1948 movie, "The Bicycle Thief" online from Netflix the other night. It was all in Italian with captions across the bottom of the screen, but I really enjoyed it!

The film is about a guy with a family who is looking for work and finds a job putting up posters around Rome. The job requires him to have a bicycle, so he has to get his out of the pawn shop. Sure enough, first day on the new job, his bike is stolen. He and his son look all over town in desperation for his bike. He needs it to keep the job, to provide for his family. Finally, he's tempted to steal someone else's bike. I won't tell the rest of the story, but it got me to thinking:

How many people do you suppose are driven so low as to steal bikes, in response to their own bike being stolen? Or, are all bicycle thieves simply scumbags that ought to be executed on the spot? (I would vote for the latter)

I had a bike stolen. Not once but twice. It was a real sickening feeling. And every once in a while, I see videos on the Internet of petty thieves in middle eastern countries, and how they're dealt with. My guess is, after the second hand is chopped off, a guy's thieving career is dramatically affected.

Being stolen from does not grant a right to do the same to another.

Stealing your bike back? Sure. Stealing a bike from a person who did nothing to you? No so much.

As an aside, I almost had my helmet stolen off my bike a few days ago... Not sure what would possess someone to do that. It'd be like stealing someone's underwear :yuck:

When my house was burglarized can't say I had even the slightest inclination to burglarize someone else to replace my stuff.

There is something essential missing in a thief, at least in this time and society. In some other time frame and context, I do believe I would have stolen if necessary to keep my family from starvation but that situation doesn't exist now.

The last bike I had stolen was my cheap, and first, MTB which was hanging in my garage next to my expensive road bike. Not only where the thiefs scumbags, but they didn't know much about bikes. I really enjoyed that bike, too.
To answer your question, execute on the spot.
and lock you bike.

It's the thought that counts!

Make no mistake, I was not very happy that somebody stole my bike, out of my garage. I was a bike that I did enjoy riding. But if they stoe the other bike that cost three time as much, I would have been completly heartbroken. I still have that bike, btw.

The Bicycle Thief is an outstanding film. Film buffs often rank it high on many "Ten Best Films of All Time" list. It's a personal favorite of mine. The film kicked off the "Neo Realismo" line of film-making that includes most Fellini films.

sounds like an interesting movie

There is also a Chinese remake of the same movie. Probably bikes for the poor are just as critical in China and would make a good story.

We just watched it a month ago, we watch mostly foreign movies, my wife of course though there will be a happy ending... a classic in many ways

we steal from people who steal from us, to teach them that stealing is wrong?

I had a bike stolen from me many many years ago when I was in high school. I called my brother to come get me and we drove around the closet neighborhoods and low and behold there it was. A dude was sitting on his front porch looking at his "prize".
We stopped and I got out and said thanks for taking my bike and took it back. He didn't say a word.

You never know what drives people to steal.

What struck me about the movie was how casual the police were when the main character's bike was stolen. Just fill out a paper and sign it. That's all. And he and his son traveled the neighborhoods looking for his bike, while nobody cared about their plight. Finally, he's desperate, he gets the message from everybody that bicycle theft is no big deal, and he comes to the conclusion that there's not much wrong with replacing his stolen bike with another stolen bike. Maybe it's just the man's resignation that trying to combat theft is futile.