All that is required is the person who takes the frame to determine before hand in their head that it was abandoned or not. It is almost impossible to have all the facts for most decisions we make in life and it some point with the information you have you make a judgment call.

If they decide that someone meant to keep it because it's locked but take it anyway because they deserve it more or any other reason they are knowingly stealing.

If they decide without a doubt in their mind that it was abandoned based on the facts they have and they take it will be stored in their brain for the rest of their life as that time they took the free frame someone abandoned and not stole.

If someone took something they thought was abandoned and they were incorrect I would not label them a thief, just stupid.

How about this:

There has been a boat in the back my apt parking lot for 7 months (Atlanta, GA). It hasn't moved. Has flat tires on the trailer. Dusty, dirty cover on it. I know it hasn't moved because I park next to it occasionally. Guess what? The owner pulls it out and washes it this week. Now he's gone fishin'. I wonder what would have happened if I had claimed his unlocked "neglected" boat.

It's ridiculous that people think that they can actually change another's person mind in this thread. It's ethics and morality. We all have are own.

Sage this thread.

Is that how you bike theives get away with it?

BIGGEST TROLL THREAD EVER.

This ****s on craiglist
 

So Ive been looking round to buy a pista, and was checking craiglist a couple days ago when I ran into something a bit odd. Its this frame and wheel exactly, on sale for $400. Makes no sense whhatsoever haha, just seems like a scam.

http://newyork.craigslist.org/mnh/bik/1216884995.html

it sounds legitimate.

Whoever made that Craigslist ad is a funny b@stard. HAHAHA!

So I guess ******* aren't really ******* either as long as they *think* the girl wants it. And if they are wrong, well, they are just "stupid".

I UNDERSTAND NOW.

Devil's haircut has a point; **** and stealing a bike are pretty much the same thing.

Not saying **** and stealing are the same. I am saying that justifying something (anything ... theft, ****, murder, whatever) in your head doesn't make it true or even right.

Just because someone *thought* a bike was abandoned and took it, doesn't mean they cease to be a thief. Can you imagine it? "Officer, I thought that Camry was just sitting there because its driver no longer wanted it, so I figured, why not help myself?!?"

The point being made, though, is that the less serious the crime, the more moral leeway there is; the more open for interpretation.

If you see a quarter on the ground, do you feel like a thief for picking it up? It's not yours, after all. You could turn it in to the proper authorities. Maybe someone left that quarter there and was planning to come back for it. After all, why would you even want to spend a quarter you didn't earn?

If you see a $20 bill on the ground, do you feel like a thief for picking it up? It's not yours, after all. You could turn it in to the proper authorities. Maybe someone left that $20 bill there and was planning to come back for it. After all, why would you even want to spend $20 you didn't earn?

If you see a $100 bill on the ground, do you feel like a thief for picking it up? It's not yours, after all. You could turn it in to the proper authorities. Maybe someone left that $100 bill there and was planning to come back for it. After all, why would you even want to spend $100 you didn't earn?

If you see a wallet filled with credit cards and ID's on the ground, do you feel like a thief for picking it up? It's not yours, after all. You could turn it in to the proper authorities. Maybe someone left that wallet there and was planning to come back for it. After all, why would you even want to go on a shopping spree with credit cards you didn't earn?

If you see an abandoned bike frame on the ground, do you feel like a thief for picking it up? It's not yours, after all. You could turn it in to the proper authorities. Maybe someone left that bike frame there and was planning to come back for it. After all, why would you even want to ride a bike you didn't earn?




I'm guessing most of us would start to feel guilty somewhere between the $100 and the wallet filled with credit cards. Some people might feel bad about the $20. I don't think the quarter is gonna weigh on anyone's conscience.

You can't say stealing is wrong on principle if you're willing to accept picking up that quarter, or that $20, or that $100. You can say the individuals moral gradient is off, and that that a bike frame should be well above their threshold, but that's about it.

So wrongness is dependent on the severity of the crime? This is (obviously) a grey area. This is wholly dependent on the individual at what point they feel what they are doing is wrong. Certainly mentally ill serial killers don't feel remorse or guilt over their actions. I can accept this argument, but it means you also have to consider the amount of certainty you have over your actions. That is, say you find a quarter lying on a well-trafficked public sidewalk. Given the circumstances, you can be *relatively* certain it is lost and will never be recovered. The circumstances in question aren't as clear. The Pista (a relatively expensive bike) was locked (with a secure u-lock). Knowing this, it seems reasonable to conclude the owner did not want it taken. That something hadn't been touched by its owner for a while alone isn't really good supporting evidence that the bike was no longer wanted. I've seen cars parked in my office's parking garage for months at a time, but I don't assume they are mine for the taking or that the owners no longer want them. Anyhow, obviously situations are grey, but as such it's really impossible to give a definitive answer.

I will, however, say that I think it's very bad judgement to angle grind a locked bike free so you can take it and give it to your girlfriend.

this thread is still going?!

Nope, no one has posted in this thread for nearly a week.

How you FEEL about it has no bearing on whether it is stealing or not. THERE IS AN ESTABLISHED PROCESS FOR CLAIMING ITEMS THAT ARE LOST/ABANDONED.

Yes, there is.
- You turn said item over to the police.
- Wait a pre-defined amount of time (like 30 or 60 days) to see if anyone will claim the missing item.
- If they don't, it's legally yours.


Abandoned bikes are gathered by police ALL THE TIME. They are then auctioned in the police auctions.

You can twist this stuff anyway you want.

If I joke with you, and you are extremely offended you may think I was making a verbal attack on you think I was an ******* from your perspective. From my perspective I was just joking around with you.

What are the facts? Am I an ******* verbally attacking you with jokes? Or are you just easily offended and can't take a joke?

My point is I personally believe the intent of ones actions do matter.

In the extreme case of a ****, I guess you could say if it was a mentally disturbed person who was mentally handy capped and lacked the ability to do much reasoning, I would think of them differently than someone who KNEW they were doing something wrong. Know what I mean? But stuff like this DOES actually happen all the time. Another scenario could be a guy and a girl who were drinking and or doing drugs, they have sex and the guy thinks shes into it because they are both so wasted, but can't remember much the next mourning. She wakes up the next day in bed and thinks, hey I think this guy ***** me I don't think I would have let him sleep with me? And the guy is like, well I thought you were into it? It can be difficult to say who is right without being there watching with a clear head and having 100% of the facts. That would be a pretty different situation than stalking someone and grabbing them with a knife and telling them to get naked, right?

Not twisting what you said, nor am I offended.

Just saying, being convinced you are in the right doesn't make it so.

Someone else being convinced it is wrong doesn't make so either.

Seeing as how it seems to be a gray area I am willing to let the person taking the frame determine if they are playing the role of thief or not since the owner does not seem to be around.

When they locked I am sure they wanted to keep it.

As much time has past and many parts have been taken off the bike and it has still been neglected by the original owner and time still continues to pass with no sign of care from the original owner it becomes less clear if the owner has just abandoned the bike or not. I can see how someone could easily to the conclusion its abandoned OR still owned by the original owner depending on your perspective.

So I take it you've never picked up a quarter off the street? Or read a newspaper someone else left on the subway?

We all know there are laws and regulations in place for these kinds of things, and those laws apply just as much to a quarter on the street or newspaper on the subway.

What is in dispute is the objective value at which it ceases to be ethical to skip these rules and regulations.

For me, I think the "finders keepers" ethic is perfectly reasonable up to the $100 bill, but for the wallet and bike frame official channels are the way to go. The OP seems to think the "finders keepers" ethic includes a bike frame, but he'd probably stop short of claiming a 'seemingly abandoned' BMW. Maybe you and Devilshaircut turn in every wayward penny to the police for auctioning.

This thread is about the ethics of claiming abandoned goods, not the letter-of-the-law regulations which ostensibly govern them.

I would consider having to cut a lock off something to take it a moral line in the sand for me.

Obviously YMMV.

Frankly, I don't see how you could "reasonably" conclude a bike was unwanted when it is:

1) a nice or at least pricey bike
2) it was locked (with a Kryptonite u-lock, no less)
3) had only been there a few months (not a long amount of time imo)

A penny randomly strewn on the ground is one thing. A securely locked Bianchi is entirely different. If you tried to report an abandoned penny to the popo, I am pretty sure you'd get laughed at. If you turned in an abandoned Pista, I am pretty sure the paperwork would get filed. Not rocket science.

CALL ME CRAZY.

You're crazy!

Thank you.

Pathetic. I hope you bike stealing guys live FAR away from me.

And with that... I hereby declare this thread ended forever!

Cue the closing credits.

yes.

If I was in a hospital, I'ld make a friend get my bike and bring it to my apt. And i'll treat them dinner or whatever after I'm out. There is just no way I'm leaving my bike for weeks outside in nyc. Nobody who appreciates their bike would leave their bike outside in nyc for over 24hrs.

Still.. i'm iffy about the taking the bike bit.

What if you were in a coma?

Although this isn't the same situation I once had a bike "liberated" by someone who felt justified in taking it based on his incorrect interpretation of the circumstances. There was a cool old Peugeot mixte sitting in the front yard of this house I used to pass on my way to work every day. The front yard was fenced in but not locked, and the bike was unsecured. It was missing the front wheel and had been in this state for at least 6 months. I decided that I would like to convert it for my wife as a birthday present and so I started stopping on my way to or from work a couple of times a week to try and ask the owner about it but nobody was ever home. Finally I caught the owner home one day and he told me I could have it. Well, I was on my bike, and it was missing a wheel so I couldn't ghost ride it. I walked it to the lightrail station and took both bikes on the train. I didn't want to walk all the way home from the station with both bikes, so I decided to lock it up and come back for it in my car. I didn't go back for it right away, partly out of laziness and partly because I didn't want my wife to see it. When I went back for it two days later the bike was gone.

Fast forward 6 months or so and my friend is at a party. He spots the bike in this dudes apartment and asks the guy where he got it. Dude says "oh that thing was abandoned at a train station It was missing a wheel and all covered in cobwebs and dust so I cut the lock and brought it home." My friend told him that he thought the bike was mine and called me. I described the bike and the circumstances of it's disappearance to the guy who took it and needless to say he felt pretty bad. He brought it back to me a couple of days later, all cleaned up with a new front wheel and a nice new set of tires.

I was pretty pissed about the whole thing when it happened and I still think the guy was an ass for taking what wasn't his just because he thought whoever owned the bike didn't care about it anymore. And I think you would be an ass for stealing this Bianchi. Just because someone isn't taking care of something the way you would doesn't mean you are entitled to it.

Why is this thread active again?