pdxtex

at what point does a locked up bike which has been sitting for a loooong time having parts pilfered left and right become "fair" game. i mean, its a forgotten about bike in a more then public, urban area, that would make an excellent single speed, and if i don't come and remove it from the parking meter, the city will and undoubtedly trash it. comments? in a hammurabi/machievellian world, is this stealing or simply giving a lonely bike a new home? if i go back tommorrow and see that it is without wheels, im busting out the bolt cutters!!

Lucky07

I can't tell you how many beautiful old road bikes I see daily, kryptonite-locked to polls, chains fully-rusted, tires flat, every easily removed part stripped off them. Sad.
But yeah, it is stealing.

asalvador

I personally say its fair game. I saw a bike on the corner of a street here in LA.. busy street, right infront of a gas station. It was locked up inthe same position for a week. I said, if this thing is still there by friday im going back to get it.. City took it that same day. I say it's fair game, the owner doesnt care or something happened to him.. always wonder why people lock them up and leave them there...

Avalanche325

Sorry, but it is still stealing. What if this guy, for whatever reason, shows up in a week. And you have taken his bike. It is not up to you to decide how long he can leave his bike there.

gurana

There was like a 200+ reply post on this several months ago, I believe in general cycling. I don't feel like doing the search, but I'd say the majority of responses said "yea, it's stealing". However, about half of those that said it was still stealing said that it would be alright given that it was forgotten about, and the other half maintained that stealing was wrong regardless.

I'd probably fall in that last category. It is stealing, and I wouldn't do it because of that. I do agree that getting rid of it would ultimately be better for the public good.

One final note on this subject would be that I read a good suggestion to overcome this moral dilema. Contact the public organization that would generally be responsible for getting rid of the bike. Tell them that it's there, been there for X years/months. Ask them what the general policy is for dealing with abandonded bikes. If the policy is that they throw them away after they break the lock, ask if you'd be allowed to take it off their hands and save the landfill space. I'd start by calling local police. They'll at least tell you how long the bike would have to be there before it could be considered 'abandonded'.

Coyote2

An old grad-school roommate decided to "liberate" a seemingly abandoned, locked-up bike on our campus. He asked for my opinion, and I told him that it is stealing, that the bike's owner might be on vacation or have his leg in a cast, etc. Doofus roommate cut off the lock and started riding the bike to school each day.

One day, months later, my roommate came out of our building and found the bike's owner and a campus cop waiting patiently. It seemed that, a few months earlier, the bike's owner had finally gotten the cast removed from his leg, only to find that someone had stolen his bike. Now he had spotted his bike, called a cop, and the two of them waited for my roomate to come unlock his bike. Roomate was arrested, which he richly deserved.

Moral of the story? If you want a bike, spend your own money. Helping yourself to a bike is called 'stealing.'