Be Scootersafe - How to protect your precious ride, and your precious self

With crime at an all-time high, what do you need to watch out for and what steps can you take to keep safe? In this feature we will be highlighting real-world cases and giving our best advice on how to be smart and stay safe.

As a business we have suffered our fair share of scooter-related crime. Break-ins, ride-off thefts during test rides, and card fraud to name just 3 (and there are more, criminals are nothing if not inventive!) Sadly we also deal frequently with customers who have lost their ride, and some of the ways it happens make our heads spin. We have had people lose scooters:

• From secure gated carparks

• From outside cafes they are sat in

• From home garages and sheds

• From behind their backs in a dairy

• From school bike parks

• From vehicles

• By having them literally taken out of their hands!

Its an urban jungle out there, and SSO’s (Sexy, Shiny Objects) can come in for unwanted attention.

Sometimes though, we do wonder if people have done all they can, or if they just underestimate the threat. We often hear:

‘I only left it outside for a few minutes’

‘I went out to check on it every 5 minutes’

‘I didn’t lock it as I was only going to be a short while’

‘I didn’t expect anybody would get in there’

…and any number of other, somewhat innocent responses. But here’s the thing:

There are people out there who will target what they want, and wait for the opportunity to take it.

I know it sounds scary, but it's the truth, and you need to be a step ahead of the scumbags. So read on for our tried-and-tested suggestions to keeping out of harm's way:

1. Invest in a decent lock. Not a thin cable from The Warehouse. You can snip through that with wire cutters in seconds, and thieves carry wire cutters as a ‘tool of the trade’. 

2. Base the quality, and cost, of the lock on the value of and risk to what you are looking to protect. If you are locking a Xiaomi outside a dairy for 5 minutes while you grab an ice-cream, low protection is probably OK. If you are locking a $4000 scooter in downtown Auckland, buy a German-made Abus lock. It will cost you around $150. Its worth it. (Unless you own a large Alsation you can chain to it).

3. Add Airtags to your scooter. We have witnessed several recoveries made with owners using these. They really work.

4. Do NOT ride through sketchy areas, like dark underpasses, on your own, especially if you are female. One of our own staff was stood over by a small gang for his scooter in exactly this situation. Avoid these areas. It's common sense.

5. Assume nothing. Do not assume someone cannot get into your ‘secure’ parking area at work. Do not assume your home garage is secure. Do not assume because you are in your fave cafe on Ponsonby Road on a  sunny day that nobody is looking for an easy steal. They are.

6. Insure it. Photograph it, and note your serial number. Photograph the lock with it. If someone comes along with a battery-powered angle-grinder and tears off that lock, at least your insurance company will know you tried!

7. Register with ‘529Garage’. It's a free database to record bike and scooter ownership. Very often, stolen goods are recovered but the Police don’t know who owns what. If you are registered to this database, they can contact you and return your property if it is recovered. We have stickers available to display that your scooter or bike is registered to this awesome service

We are open 7 days a week, and if you want further advice on security, or just an opinion, please do get in touch. Good luck, ride safe.