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Can bicycles be made unstealable? |
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As police continue to count all the stolen bikes they’ve found since cracking the Toronto bike-theft ring, the Star talks to design experts to see if it’s possible to make an unstealable bike. Starting in September, the Bicycle Trade Association of Canada and Canadian Crime Stoppers are launching a nationwide bicycle identification program using microdot technology, where a PIN number is encoded on a data dot the size of a grain of sand. The dots are applied in a liquid adhesive on all the moveable parts of a bike and can be read using ultraviolet light and an inexpensive magnifier. The kit will sell in bike stores. The benefit, says Pat Cowman, president of Datadot Technology Canada, is that it’s a national system and can identify bikes stolen in Toronto that might end up for sale in Montreal or Ottawa. The technology is already being used to identify cars and power tools; police forces across Canada are being trained to use the technology in retrieving stolen industrial materials.
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