MotoYard.com Blog

If you’ve never thought about what the chances could be of your motorcycle becoming just another statistic in the fight against motorcycle theft, maybe you should. Do you own one of the top five most popular makes of stolen bikes? Here they are, in order:

• Suzuki
• Honda
• Yamaha
• Kawasaki
• Harley-Davidson

Statistics have shown that in just five years time, motorcycle theft has risen 137 percent. There are organized crime rings in most major cities that have discovered that stealing bikes is much easier than stealing cars, and a lot more profitable, too. All the thief must do is roll the bike into the back of his van that he has more than likely outfitted with a ramp to facilitate the ease and speed of this unlawful transfer.

It seems that the more popular motorcycle riding becomes, the more theft of these expensive machines is reported. Thieves see them as a way to make easy money, and do a brisk business selling bike parts as well as the motorcycles themselves.

Unfortunately, if your bike is stolen, the chances of you getting it back in one piece, or even getting it back at all are fairly slim unless you take the necessary precautions to protect your investment. Some of these are simply common sense, like making sure your bike is stored in a safe, concealed area, preferably locked, when you aren’t riding it, parking your bike in a well lit area when you are away from home, remembering to always take your keys out of the ignition, and err on the side of caution when it comes to who you allow to ride your bike.

Of course, most everyone who owns a motorcycle uses care in parking and storing it. Sometimes these common sense precautions aren’t enough. Many people lock their bikes and use kill switches or alarm systems. Thieves nowadays are pretty sophisticated, and can figure out most deterrents like these very quickly. If someone with even a little experience in thievery decides they want your bike, it’s pretty hard to figure out a way to stop them.

If you want to make sure that you will be able to get your bike back if it happens to be stolen, about the only thing you can rely on is what is known as a recovery system (like LoJack). These innovative solutions to motorcycle theft are not easily seen on your bike, as they are small enough to conceal quite easily. Thieves usually don’t even suspect when a bike is equipped with a recovery system.

These systems use radio frequency, which allows law enforcement to be able to track their location with much success no matter where it is located in the United States, Canada, and even Mexico. Since it is estimated that motorcycle thieves swipe someone’s bike every seven and a half minutes, you can see just how important it can be to protect your own bike at all costs.

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