Bikes locked up at Cambridge CyclePoint stolen after workers moved them

keirik wrote:

they probably went straight in the back of the contractors van

That is a ludicrous accusation to throw out there...they may be culpable as regards a duty of care, but that does not make the contractors thieves

Bob Wheeler CX wrote:

Unreal. In a city full of professional bike thives with tools and vans, just waiting to strike.

 

Put claims in to Abellio for a grand a bike! They make enough from ticket hikes anyway.

Does anyone know who to contact regarding a claim? Seriously; obviously I'm not asking a grand, but legally they did owe a Duty Of Care, and when I parked my bike there were no signs yet saying not to park there. Even if there had been, their duty was to move the bikes to an equally secure location, not just rest them against a wall AND then advertise to potential thieves where to find them! 

I tried searching for cambridge cyclepoint but can only find 404-notfound pages. 

jmaccelari wrote:

So people ignore signs, the workmen have to remove the bikes to do their jobs and then the idiots complain? Seems like we need some more adults in this country who can accept the consequences of their actions. No sympathy at all.

 I suspect it takes about a minute to make it really really really clear that you shouldn't park on a particular rack though - cover it with warning tape for instance. 

So it's either a case of signs were crap or people were crap.

I guess we'd need to see the signage before we jumped on any bandwagon, either way. 

Indeed - "Signs were put up advising customers not to use some of the stands on the ground floor"

Not very specific, is it? Conjuers up an image of a few (badly) hand-written notes stuck about with single pieces of cellotape.

jmaccelari wrote:

So people ignore signs, the workmen have to remove the bikes to do their jobs and then the idiots complain? Seems like we need some more adults in this country who can accept the consequences of their actions. No sympathy at all.

Pass judgement when you know what signs were in place, and where.

People cover their arse when they screw up. What was done and what was said to be done may be two different things.

vonhelmet wrote:

If there was clear signage telling people not to use the racks then they've only got themselves to blame.

Clearly, the signs weren't clear as more than one person didn't get the message.  As has already been said, a minute with hazard tape would have ensured clarity.

To remove the bikes and leave them unsecured and able to be stolen seems like negligence to me, but what does the law say on the subject?  Removing someone's property from where it was secure to somewhere it was insecure without taking reasonable steps to prevent theft looks like gross negligence to me.

They seem to have committed two stupidities; not to make it clear that some parking was not to be used, and to remove bicycles to where they could easily be stolen.

If it was my bike, I'd be demanding compensation, and far be it from me to suggest that some people who didn't have a bike there might like to apply too.  No, no, no, no.  They might be a bit surprised if 10,000 cyclists claim so keep the numbers down to something reasonable.

burtthebike wrote:

To remove the bikes and leave them unsecured and able to be stolen seems like negligence to me, but what does the law say on the subject?  Removing someone's property from where it was secure to somewhere it was insecure without taking reasonable steps to prevent theft looks like gross negligence to me.

I agree.  I once worked in a building which warned all tenants not to leave bikes in the main hall/lobby or else they'd be removed (they could take them into their offices, but not leave them in the common areas).  When people did just pile them up in the communal lobby, the landlord moved them to a locked service area and left a note saying to 'get in touch to have your bike back'.

Surely, if you remove someone's locked bike (and, presumably, use some sort of tool to do so, since however secure this place is I don't believe people just left their bikes unlocked), then you are taking responsibility for that bike.

Unless (or even) if you are a bike thief.

So, these contractors or whosoever they were contracted to, had a responsibility to (1) replace the broken locks and/or (2) secure the bikes in some place equally as secure as where they had been left locked up by these folks that morning.

Quote:

If it was my bike, I'd be demanding compensation...

Absolutely: these people left their bikes safely locked up. They have only been unlocked because of the actions of these contractors. I wouldn't think the contractors or those to whom they were contracted would have a leg to stand on, on that.

brooksby wrote:

So, these contractors or whosoever they were contracted to, had a responsibility to (1) replace the broken locks

What broken locks ? It says the bikes were moved, also mentions the bike were 'unlocked' but doesn't specify how. If the bikes were locked to a single loop stand (pretty common) and you're moving that stand (which they were) - then it would probably be easiest to unbolt it and slide it off the locks... that said, if they did do that you'd have thought it would be pretty easy to reverse the process once the stand is moved. However the bottom line is that we don't know what happened from either this or the newspaper article so it might be worth seeing if anyone does before the road.cc lynch mobs fire up their torches again. What happened does sound ridiculous, but it'll not get any better with folk jumping to conclusions at every opportunity.

vonhelmet wrote:

If there was clear signage telling people not to use the racks then they've only got themselves to blame.

So you have inside knowledge that the signs went up when these racks were empty and were promiently displayed?

Was there also confirmation of where removed bikes would be kept safely and securely?