When I was a student at Berkeley, there was a lot of bike theft. In the winter, kids would wear full-length coats. Under their coat was often a pair of long bolt cutters. The ends of the handles had holes drilled in them and a rope fitted. In this way they could walk up to a bike lock, open their coat, swing out the cutter hung from their neck, and cut the shackle.

Maybe more amazing was that all bikes had to have a license plate plus have their frame stamped with a kind of VIN. More than 90% of stolen bikes were recovered.

Furthermore, the traffic police viewed bikes the same way as cars. Driving on the sidewalk? No different than driving your car there. Driving the wrong way on a one-way street, yup, not good. All tickets given on your bike were applied to your car (assuming you had a driver's license).

I'm sure this will upset a few people but given the bike traffic in this city, they had to get a handle on it.

Rick