Winnipeg police are warning motorcyclists to take precautions to protect their bikes amid a major increase in the number of thefts in the city this year.
There were 122 reported crimes involving the theft of a motorcycle or moped in the city between January and July — an almost 72 per cent increase from the same period last year, and an increase of 52 per cent over the past five years, city police say.
Winnipeg Police Service spokesperson Const. Claude Chancy said this kind of theft tends to be seasonal, with the majority of the reported motorcycle thefts in the latter part of the summer.
“They are easy targets for thieves,” Chancy said in an interview with CBC Radio’s Up To Speed. “They tend to be rolled. They can be sometimes, depending on the size … lifted by two people into the bed of a truck.”
Winnipeg police say anti-theft measures that can be commonly found on passenger vehicles are rarer on motorcycles and mopeds. But like cars, thieves still have ways to defeat the ignition system.
Riders should use at least two anti-theft devices whenever their bike is parked, no matter the area or the time of day, police say.
They recommend a tire-locking device along with a lever or ignition lock so motorcycles can’t be put into neutral and rolled away.
A GPS tracker may also help officers locate the vehicle if it’s stolen, police said.
‘Seems like every day there’s a new theft’
Louie Rondeau left his bike, a Yamaha WR250, out in his driveway overnight last July. He didn’t notice it was stolen until the next morning, after dropping his son off at daycare.
“Got some footage from a neighbour. It’d just been walked off by someone that’s not me,” he said.
Based on what he’s seeing in social media groups, “it seems like every day there’s a new theft,” he said.
His bike had an alarm, but “most security devices, thieves have already found a way around them,” Rondeau said, adding he’s not sure he would’ve heard the alarm anyway.
“I put a lot of work into the bike.… It was kind of my everything bike,” he said.
“I completely empathize with [Rondeau’s] loss,” said the Winnipeg Police Service’s Chancy.
“That’s something … you’ve worked hard to obtain and enjoy. So we definitely as a service are very cognizant of the fact that we’ve got a very big problem here.”