If a sign says not to do something, do you do it anyway?
In today’s story, one commuter found a way to get revenge on people who were illegally locking bike lockers even though the lockers were empty.
Let’s see how the story plays out…
Reserve a bike locker when you shouldn’t -nothing a £20 pair of bolt croppers can’t fix .. forever
The town in which I live has fill-size bike lockers – very secure.
On these lockers are signs saying you can’t reserve them by leaving them locked and empty.
They had trouble finding an empty locker.
How it started – I regularly commuted from my hometown to the next big city.
I used to cycle each morning to the train station, wheel my bike into a locker, lock it and go to work.
One morning I get there, and all the lockers are used. It’s a real pain, but I get my wife to drive in, take my bike home, and I go to work.
They discovered why all of the lockers were locked.
Next morning I get to the lockers 30 minutes sooner (at 7:30), thinking I just needed to be there sooner to get a locker.
NOPE – all used.
I start to wonder what’s going on and get on my hands and knees and look under the doors of the lockers – nearly all of them are empty, but locked by people.
They tried to get the city to do something about it, but that didn’t work.
First, I try and be reasonable.
I call the council (who have the “don’t you dare lock these when empty signs”), and they avoid responsibility, saying it’s the train station’s responsibility.
I ask the station manager, who claim’s it’s the council’s responsibility.
So, I go to Ebay and make it my responsibility.
When they went to the train station, he brought bolt-croppers.
It’s frightening what you can cut through with a £20 pair of bolt-croppers.
The next Saturday, I drive to the train station, and for every locker that is locked and doesn’t have a bike in, I crop the lock and take it.
About 80% of the lockers were like this.
They went to the train station just to watch the reactions of people who had left empty lockers locked.
Then the sweet revenge happens on the Monday morning.
I turn up and just watch.
People cycle up to their lockers and find the lock is gone – no way for them to safely leave their bikes.
I got to enjoy the dawning expression of surprise and then frustration on 3 people’s faces as they had to go through the “what do I do – no way to lock my bike” pain I did.
They repeated the process several more times.
Next Saturday, I did it again.
Then I became addicted to it.
I drove out to the next two train stations on the line (where our council’s territory ended) and did the same to the lockers there.
I kept it up for about a month until the locks stopped being used to reserve lockers.
I still have the bolt-croppers 🙂
It sounds like the bolt-croppers did the job!
Let’s see how Reddit responded to this story…
This reader thinks they were brave.
Here’s the perspective of someone who used to work for the city council.
Here’s the perspective of someone who used to ride a bike to work.
This reader thinks they need to make stickers.
I like the sticker idea.
That would probably be even more effective!
If you thought that was an interesting story, check out what happened when a family gave their in-laws a free place to stay in exchange for babysitting, but things changed when they don’t hold up their end of the bargain.