On Wednesday night I had dinner with a friend who was “celebrating” having just had his bicycle stolen from outside the store he owns in a fashionable part of District V, almost a year to the day after an earlier bringa of his had been filched. Unlike in some of the more creative recent cases of bicycle theft we’ve seen locally, the perp only had to walk by and quickly swipe the bike, as the thing had been left unlocked, though just for a few seconds. So is my friend stupid, or what?
Intriguingly, according to a two-part video investigation on hvg.hu (part one is here, and part two here), it’s not as easy to get a kerékpár pinched in Budapest as you might think.
The reporters first left a bike worth Ft 65,000 (€230) for hours without locking it on several downtown streets and squares close to my friend’s shop. But while a few passers-by looked at it in disbelief – as can be seen in the video at the first link – nobody took it.
However, commenters to the first story pointed out this was not the way to get a bicycle stolen in Budapest. These readers said it was a mistake to leave the bike at such “elite” locations as Hollán Ernő utca and in front of the Basilica, and moreover that the bike should be locked, to give the impression that the owner is not nearby. So the next time out another bike (worth much less than the first) was left on a square in District VIII. You can watch a video of what happened at the second link above.
As for why my friend’s bike was the exception to the above rule, there is only one extenuating circumstance I can think of: He had parked it within sight of one of his own security guards.
I guess anyone having their bike stolen here can take solace in the fact the thief will actually have to ride the thing on Budapest’s roads which means that they will at the very least have the shit scared out of them and severe carbon monoxide poisoning but all stand a very good chance of being maimed for life! Poetic justice!