Bicycle Theft As Safety Index

Mariano Pasik, a publicist based out of Buenos Aires, has untertaken an interesting project. Using hidden cameras and cheap bicycles as bait, he has set out to gauge crime in different neighborhoods of Buenos Aires. The longer it takes for the bike to be stolen the safer the area, is his hypothesis. He is encouraging other videographers to join his project to create a worldwide safety index.

To test this hypothesis, Pasik leaves the bike in a public space and then sets a hidden video camera to record the impending theft. The videos are housed online here, and are sped up and accompanied by music. The faces of the thieves are blurred in the video – a good thing, as people have apparently left messages on the website calling for the death penalty for those captured on film.

Pasik has a different opinion about the thieves:

What you see on the videos is that they aren’t professional thieves, they aren’t people who went out to rob. They are people who ran into temptation and decided to commit a crime, they become thieves at the moment they take the bike… You see the person thinking and thinking and thinking, coming and going. Sometimes they talk by phone. They go away. They come back. It’s more about an internal dilemma between good and bad, than about the bicycle itself.

Interesting fact: Not one bicycle has been stolen by a woman…

via Reuters