Okay, so the op takes the bike, leaves his email, advertises with fliers, craigslist, etc, is it still okay? It's the same as the state holding onto it and returning it if the owner claims it. Only difference is that it's somehow okay for a faceless government to do it than another fellow cyclist.

I dont think it's "ok" -- and just because he's a cyclist is not an excuse.

and it's "ok" for a government entity to do so. why? because that is the job we've given them. conversely, until a majority of citizens have agreed and set a contract to let the original poster steal locked bikes, then it is not "ok."

Either way I have no problems with the police seizing abandoned bikes, and nor do I have any problem with other cyclists taking abandoned bikes. Granted that they have been abandoned for an extensive amount of time and attempts are made to find the owner; which is often more than what the police do.

LOL posting here to justify attempted theft?

If you see a car parked on the side of a street for a month straight does it give you the right to hot wire and take it?

...only if you're a car enthusiast, apparently.

I think the OP and anyone in that situation should steal the bike then be required to donate it to someone else, so they don't personally profit from it. How much effort would go into "liberating" the thing then, do you think?

http://www.bikeforums.net/attachment...1&d=1244441245

I wouldn't be surprised if there have been car enthusiasts that have taken old abandoned cars and restored them.

so?

I'm actually surprised this isn't a joke thread...

If you need to make a post on an internet forum justifying stealing a bike that's probably a sign you should just walk away. I'm sure the guy who jacked the rear wheel is a "rear wheel" enthusiast.

Why not just report the locked up bike to the police? They'll cut it and try to find the owner. If the owner comes files a police report with the serial number well voila they get their bike back.

what about bikes that aren't locked. is that like a given that the owner doesn't care? or is it like it's expected to be stolen?

ya my uncle took over an abandoned ghia, it was at a shop and the owner never came back, made several attempts to locate the owner, and had to go through some process through the dmv to get it under his name.

Well, first off, I don't ever justify anything to myself. If I'm doing something, then it's justified (for life in general, not just the topic at hand). I know my limits for "right" and "wrong", and I know when I'm on the verge of crossing those lines. I toe them, but I don't cross them. But, like everyone else, sometimes it's worked out and sometimes things have gone south. It's impossible to know the outcome of everything we do in life, and that's the rub.

In general, all we have to go by is our ethical interpretation of the law. We speed, we run red lights, we break the law everyday because of the perceived benefit involved. And we throw a ton of qualifiers in there before hand to make sure it's ok with ourselves, the first one usually being that no one gets hurt in the process. I wouldn't take a bike or anything off a bike just randomly, not if I saw it everyday for a week, 2 weeks, 2 months, a whole year. It's usually pretty obvious when a bike is still being used, no matter how ****ty it looks. If it's obvious the thing hasn't moved though, if it's already half stripped, if it has every sign of being abandoned, then i will interpret it as being abandoned. I'm not taking things then just because I think I can use it more readily than the owner, I'm thinking that the owner is no longer in the equation and how it can be re-purposed into something better. Yes, their maybe extenuating circumstances like the one pointed out earlier where the person was in the hospital. But in the absence of any other information, all one has to go by is what they know. And if we lived everyday of our lives contemplating all of the ramifications of every decision we make, we'd never get anything done. Granted, you should think about what you're doing before you do it. But if I run a red light, I'm not going to think about the guy in the car behind me getting pissed off because he couldn't do the same and running the next cyclist he sees off the road.

I'm not condoning the theft of bikes, but like someone else said, it comes down to what we define as theft. And when it comes to the ethics of the law, everyone on this board, and I mean EVERYONE, has had their own interpretations of what's right and what's wrong.

Jaa, sometimes stealing is ethical until it's your stuff that gets stolen.......

Save it. Don't steal it. Don't take it to build it up for yourself, take it so that no more harm can come to it. But do everything you possibly can to find the owner. Wait long enough, like six months long enough, and if the owner can not be found, donate it. And if you do find the owner, be a good human being and fellow cyclist and replace the owners lock, they already have enough to replace. You might just make a lifelong friend out of all this, which is much better than a free frame.

I once lost a debit card 3 times over a 2 month span. Lo and behold, sometime started charging it up the third time around. Do I blame someone else for doing something that is a pretty basic human response, or do I blame myself for being stupid enough to lose my card that often? I would say the blame lies with me, and that's how I took it.

All it boils down to is making educated decisions. I personally think it's a horrible decision to take it upon yourself to saw off a lock and take a bike. You're also assuming that the owner is no longer present. How do you know? Because they haven't been around? Maybe they're out of town, maybe they're in a hospital, family emergency, business, trip, just forgot about the blood thing, etc...

It's a lot easier to walk away than to assume tons of variables that you have no definitive proof to make an educated decision. Walk away and save yourself the hassle of being just another thief.

Kind of twisted logic there... but wouldn't it be better if the third person didn't charge it at all and had some decency?

Yeah it would've been, but that's not the world we live in. I know this situation doesn't correlate entirely to the topic at hand, but there are parallels that apply i think.

ethics is not about toeing the line and getting away with stuff.

it's not about what's expected either.

blaming yourself for losing your debit card is fine. blaming yourself for the person charging stuff to your account is stupid.

it's about weighing one person's desires and quality of life against another's... and stealing a bike so the government doesn't take it is NOT ethical.

Wow, what a way to justify being a prick. It's akin to saying 'she was dressed all sexy like and was just asking to be *****'. Go get 'em, slugger. :rolleyes:

You mean like the police?

This.

I knew a guy who had some... stong opinions and questionable philosophies. He was always the kind of guy you could call on for some random favor, because he was a pack rat and had EVERYTHING. One day he found himself a set of 4' bolt cutters.

He started cutting locks for friends when they lost their keys drunk.

Then he started freeing up crusty old BMXs in crappy neighborhoods. Only after he had watched them for a few months, and then he'd give them to a local childrens charitable center.

Then he started cruising the campuses, cause I mean those kid's don't even care about their ****. I mean look at how much they throw out on move out day? Where do you think I got these sneakers? I only unchain them when I know schools out for the year, and they haven't moved all semester.

Then I was out for a ride with him on a popular MUP, and at the crest of a trail was a beautifully set up 90's MTB locked to a fence. Man, I'm gonna come back here and check that bike out tomorrow night. If it's still here, that person has more money than common sense, and they don't deserve a bike that sweet.

The last time I saw him, I was at his house and he had carbon frames laying around everywhere.



It's a slippery slope, man. Like K2 covered in KY.

a friend and i were walking around in soho over the weekend and i'm pretty sure i saw the same bike you are talking about complete with hacksaw cuts to the u lock. we both remarked at what a shame it was that it was stripped to that point how nice it would be to have that frame and then commented on how happy we both bought the same lock used to lock the bike up and kept walking. honestly i'm not sure if i would take the frame or not if presented with the opportunity. i like to think i wouldn't but a small part of me thinks i would.

i have to admit that i definately have the same thought regarding stripped bikes around the city. it seems like people come back to their bikes, see all the missing parts and just leave it there. i have at least one friend who locked up his bike outside a bar, got hammered in the bar and went home without his bike and didn't have any idea where it was until a friend noticed it a month later.

I have been lurking on this forum for quite sometime and just now registered so I can post to this thread.

The way I see it is this: Its wrong to take what is not yours. Pretty simple idea.

The bike may have fallen on hard times, you may put it to good use, the owner may not care about it, heck, taking this bike may cure the worlds hunger problem, but the bottom line is that it isn't yours and you have no ownership of it, therefore taking it is not only ethically wrong but illegal. Justify it anyway you want, but it doesn't make it right and it certainly doesn't make it legal.

My wife is a criminal attorney, has been a public defender for a few years and a prosecutor for a few years, and I can tell you one thing is true, 95% of the accused/guilty can justify their crimes just fine, in fact, in their eyes it is usually someone else's fault (in this case, you are saying "its the owner's fault for leaving a bike in this condition, therefore its okay for me to steal it." Its faulty logic, period).

Someone justified stealing to feed their hungry kids, this is still just faulty logic. If you need to steal to put food on the table of your kids, you need to make better decisions in life so you are a better provider. Its your fault you don't have the means to feed your kids, not the owner of the supermarket where you shoplifted the can of baked beans. If you fall on hard times, there are organizations, churches and community groups full of good people that will help you out, reach out to them before you commit a crime. Hardship isn't an excuse for commiting a crime.

The answer is to stop being stingy and cough up the $700 to buy your girlfriend her own Pista instead of stealing it from someone.

EDIT: Seriously though, who wants to give someone a stolen bike, whether they stole it or not? Especially to his girlfriend? Especially when HE stole it?

yes steal her the pista for her first bike. And maybe when you propose, you can take that hacksaw to some girl's ringfinger and get yourself a free engagement ring, too.

This pisses me off so much. You obviously know about hard times.

While I don't agree that stealing cannot sometimes be the lesser of two evils ... I do think that in America it is a rare case indeed that stealing is not more difficult than other means of obtaining something like food. With a little work, someone who is destitute can obtain food stamps, visit soup kitchens, get handouts, or dumpster dive. You can do any of these things to feed yourself and others and not have to steal a thing.

In a poor village in Malawi or something I could see stealing food to stay alive. But anywhere in America, I call BS.

It is not stealing if its been abandoned lol. This thread is out of control.