Have you ever experienced the shock and despair of your precious bicycle not being where you thought it was?

Only those who have experienced it can truly understand, but in that instant, many thoughts race through your mind.

Did I leave it at school or work? Was it knocked over by the wind, and someone stood it up a little further away?

Actually, over the past few days, I, the author, found what I believe to be a stolen bicycle on my commute and tried to inform the police, but for a certain reason, I couldn't.

And that bicycle remains abandoned to this day.

Let me tell you about the situation with stolen bicycles.

■Municipal Collection (Removal)

If your bicycle is gone from where it was parked, the first thing to consider is whether you were "illegally parked."

Most roads and sidewalks are no-parking zones for bicycles.

If you park without permission, there's a possibility that municipal removal vehicles have come and taken it away.

Even if you had a wire lock on a guardrail, some removal teams apparently carry wire cutters, and if it's a normal wire about 10mm thick, they can easily cut it and take it away.

For U-locks that are like bars, they probably can't cut them, but sometimes there are marks on the U-shaped part of the U-lock where they tried to cut it.

It also seems that bicycles that are "earth-locked" in such a way that they cannot be moved, whether it's a legitimate response or the staff's frustration, sometimes have their tires deflated.

By the way, if your bicycle is impounded, you'll need to go to the storage facility to pick it up, and a storage fee of 2,000 to 3,000 yen will be required.

To avoid this, always use a bicycle parking area when parking.

■What to Do When Your Bicycle is Gone

Online, there are many articles suggesting that if your bicycle is gone, you should report it to the police, and many claim that it will be found that way.

In fact, I, the author, once had a stolen bicycle found and received a call from the police, but that was seven months after it was stolen.

Moreover, the bicycle, which was new, was in tatters and so rusty that it was unusable thereafter.

It's definitely a good idea to register your bicycle for crime prevention.

Otherwise, there's virtually no chance of it being found even if you report it to the police.

Most bicycles have a frame number engraved, but some do not.

You can immediately recognize your own bicycle, but a police officer cannot.

They can only identify it by the frame number and crime prevention registration number.

■Why Police Officers Cannot Find Bicycles

I found the bicycle I suspected was stolen in a parking lot.

The reasons I suspected it was stolen were, first, it wasn't locked, and it was placed in a rather obstructive spot in the parking lot.

Also, it was an unusual bicycle model.

The rest was, unfortunately, a hunch.

I contacted the police, thinking they could identify it as stolen using the crime prevention registration number.

However, the police's response was unexpected.

They said they couldn't even go to check it.

The reason was where the bicycle was parked.

Since it was a parking lot, it was on someone's private land or a company's property.

In other words, they said they couldn't investigate a bicycle on private property without permission.

When I asked what to do in such a case, they said it was necessary to confirm with the landowner.

Since this was an unexpected fact, I contacted the landowner, but they said they didn't know about the bicycle (it wasn't theirs).

When I asked what happens to abandoned bicycles in a parking lot, they said they couldn't dispose of them without permission.

If they move or dispose of it without permission, the person who moved or disposed of it would become the perpetrator of a theft, they said.

Speaking of which, I remembered seeing bicycles parked for a long time at supermarkets and convenience stores.

So, as a landowner, they want to dispose of it, but doing it themselves would be a crime.

Even if reported to the police, they apparently don't act very proactively.

■When the Police Contact You About a Found Bicycle

So, is submitting crime prevention registration and a damage report useless? No, sometimes the police do contact you about a found bicycle.

When does that happen?

Knowing this will help you understand how much you can rely on the police.

First, searches are generally not conducted.

The police are busy, and their personnel are limited.

They won't go around searching for a single lost bicycle.

We tend to have the misconception that reporting a theft to the police also means they will immediately start a search, but it's important to know that this is not the case.

Secondly, unfortunately, there's no stopping someone riding a bicycle and questioning them because its characteristics resemble those in a stolen property report.

Police officers generally don't search for bicycles based on submitted stolen property reports, so they won't stop someone just because they look suspicious.

The police check crime prevention registration numbers when the bicycle has been used in a crime or when they question someone and need to check if their bicycle is stolen.

This might seem contradictory to what I mentioned above ("they don't stop people for questioning"), but they only stop people when there's an issue with the person themselves.

It's then that the bicycle is incidentally found to be stolen, and you're contacted based on the information in your stolen property report.

As such, even if your bicycle is stolen, the police generally won't search for it, so it's absolutely advisable to file a damage report, but don't expect too much, as the chances of it being found are low unless you search for it yourself.

External Writer: Koichi Okuno