How safe is your city? I found this interesting article on Reuters that gauges safety of a city after putting it to the bicycle test. First off, I'd like to say that I think a bicycle test is the absolute best way to gauge a city's safeness (yes, safeness).
Secondly, the basis for this test is that the longer it takes for an unlocked bike to be stolen, the safer the neighborhood. I'd hesitate to say this is an accurate (or even adequate) indication of safety. I have two personal experiences to muddy the waters.
1. My third favorite possesion - my Trek 820 bike - got stolen from Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia, one of the nicest neighborhoods in the city. And it was LOCKED.
2. Ruth. My auxiliary bike Ruth was left unchained on an urban university campus and was "stolen" within the evening. This is relatively quickly, I would think. Yet I don't find the area where I abandoned Ruth to be high crime or unsafe.
Thirdly, the person responsible for this study in Buenos Aires actually video tapes these "robberies" and posts them on a website. Unfortunately the link from the article is incorrect, and even when correcting the Spanish spelling of "bicycle" within the link, the website is apparently down. But Baxter, you know I don't speak Spanish.
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