The British Transport Police will not investigate many categories of bicycle theft, the BBC learns.

My lad’s bike was stolen from a train station a few months back. He’d left it there while he was at work. He works for longer than an hour a day, like many others.

This was the BTP’s response, so it’s kind of mad to see that it’s actual policy now.

Really makes you glad to pay the old national insurance and council tax, y’know?

OC text by @DJDarren@sopuli.xyz

  • bob_omb_battlefield@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    5·
    6 days ago

    Seems like automated video processing could dramatically reduce staff time required to “watch video”. Load up the start, draw a box around the bike, then software finds time when bike is removed (or flags smaller number of substantial changes for human review).

    • phdepressed@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      9·
      6 days ago

      I mean there’s several more efficient options than watching 1x video all the way until the bike is stolen. Just looking at hourly timepoint from placement and then narrowing from there (sped up) would be fairly straightforward. Mathematically half points would be most efficient. So like 0-800 check 400 if bikes gone check 200 if not check 600, etc using half points you’d be able to find the steal pretty quickly.

      • bob_omb_battlefield@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        3·
        6 days ago

        Excellent point. Or if the video is processed similarly to something like YouTube you could just drag the slider along until the bike is gone. Maybe I just don’t understand the argument for only investigating thefts that occur in a short time period…

        • phdepressed@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          2·
          5 days ago

          The argument is that they’re too lazy and seemingly too stupid. My point is more so you can catch the crime even without relying on something like an AI. This is a problem with the person not the tools available.