Mayor of London; ‘manufacturers need to do more’

Mayor of London tells manufacturers they need to do more to tackle bike crime

On Tuesday, January 23, Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, called a summit of motorcycle manufacturers and industry representatives to task them with the job of reducing motorcycle crime. Last year over 14,000 motorcycles were stolen in London and over 23,000 crimes with committed using bikes. The Mayor is keen to put a stop to this and he believes the industry must bear some of the weight of the task. 

Representatives from Honda, Suzuki, Yamaha, BMW and Piaggio were invited to meet with the Metropolitan Police, MOPAC, the Motorcycle Industry Association and Secure by Design at City Hall. The Mayor tasked manufacturers with improving the design of new motorcycles to make them more difficult to steal. He also said he would like to see a range of short-term actions introduced with a view to reducing theft of existing models.

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The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, said: “It is essential that the manufacturers step up to help us tackle this problem at the source. Put simply, the design of motorcycles make them far too easy to steal and this must be dealt with head-on at the point of design if we are to rid our streets of these crimes.” 

However, there is no one-stop shop to solve the problem as the MCIA CEO Tony Campbell explained:

“We know the Mayor would like to hear there is a ‘magic bullet’ that can be fitted to all bikes to stop them from being stolen, but unfortunately there isn’t. If there was, we would be fitting it.

“We have explained to the Mayor that a ‘layered’ approach to security is proving to be the most effective and realistic way of making theft more difficult… But they need something to lock their bikes to, which is where City Hall can make a difference, in providing more secure parking across London.

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