pannierpacker

Has anyone else struggled with copper theft in their city recently? Where I am at, there are lots of nice bike trails but pretty much all of them are dark right now. My city has an issue with rampant copper theft that is happening the last couple of years. I've asked the city to remediate by using more theft-proof technology, but nothing has changed. All poles powered by ground electrical have had their wires stripped for over 8 months now along all of our bike trails. Especially concerned about this going into winter because we get a LOT of ice in our city.

CrimsonEclipse

1 light on your handle bars and 1 light on your helmet.

problem solved.

pannierpacker

Currently have a "Serfas USL-155" mounted to the handlebars. Its not that great but I like that it can be detached quickly.
Any recommendations on what to do differently? I have no idea what to do for helmet lights as I've never purchased one before.

PDKL45

Can you get 1-2 cheap LED ones from Aliexpress? I got one with a USB cable, so you just power it with a regular battery bank like you have for topping up your phone, and it's like a mini supernova with some bright assed LEDs. Why not just grab 1-2 of those? They just have a rubber strap for the handlebars, with a curved backing and hooks for the straps. You could easily enough buy a helmet rig/put something together.

zandoval 

Its not just in the city. Last year there was a rancher out here in Nixon Texas living 15 miles out from the nearest town Giddings on a back road. He returned home to find his service from the road missing. Almost 1/4 mile of high grade copper gone. They caught the guy over in Austin Tx at an emergency room. It appears he drove himself there after receiving severe physical injuries and buck shot wounds.

Go Figure...

Maelochs

There is a wealth of bike lighting ion the market. Most are rechargeable via USB and stay bright for quite a while ... and many are easy to get on and off.

I use Light and Motion Urban lights up front, because they are light, compact, bright, and attach with a simple rubber strap. Plenty of others just as good. Mountain bikers are known for truly massive light arrays, with on-bike power packs and such, but a couple portable, easily removable headlights and one good helmet light (I assume you would take your helmet with you) should meet your needs.

wheelreason

Maybe the electricians forget to ground the connection....
Around here, water pipes and central AC condensers get hit.

Bald Paul

My wife worked at the power company in the trouble center, analyzing outages and directing crews to fix the problem.
One night she had a large outage caused when a substation went down. Usually, this was caused by a critter (raccoon, opossum, or squirrel) that got inside and landed on the wrong thing. Crews would go in, clean out the remains - usually flash fried - and the power would be restored.
On this night she got a call back from the crew requesting police. It seems two guys had broken into the substation to steal copper but didn't check to see if it carried a few thousand volts first. It took authorities a while to identify them through dental records.
It seems it's not an isolated case. Thieves are zapping themselves all over at substations. Just Google it.

skidder

I haven't heard of any problems lately where I'm at. We did have some rampant theft back in the 2000s, primarily water system backflow devices in industrial areas were prime targets. The MUP I ride on doesn't have any lighting for night rides. We did have one interesting incident back around 2010, business was down and a thief broke into an empty duplex industrial building that had been converted into a single unit. He only turned off power to one side of the building so when he went to strip the other half he got electrocuted by the 1200A service!

CAT7RDR

My favorite are the catalytic converter thieves that are crushed by the vehicle when their jacks fail.
If the recycling companies worked with law enforcement, these types of targeted thefts would dry up.

Alan K

Had not known stealing copper wires with power is a thing these days… learn something new every day on BF.
My today’s quota is done early!

Lambkin55

I would suggest replacing the old lighting system with individual solar powered LED lighting on top of the existing poles.
--- I suspect the replacement cost, of said lighting, would be on par with replacing the copper wiring to the existing lighting.

pannierpacker

The city I live in wont do it. Their 'saving idea' is a pedestrian height light pole with the maintenance door about 10 feet off the ground. They can't afford to install these everywhere. The few places they do install them, it would be so easy for thieves just to take a ladder and do it.

Lambkin55

The state I live in had a big problem with thieves stealing air conditioning units for the copper coils 10 -15 years ago.
It was stopped over night with a new law that required recycling centers to get the name, address (Verified with photo ID), car plate #, with a photo/video of the person selling the recycled copper. In addition to that, the transaction had to be made via check NOT cash.

pannierpacker

The sad thing is that its not just MUPs in my area that are affected. Entire parkways are dark. These are high volume roads that usually have a bike trail along side of them.

Iride01 

Not that I have anything to help the OP, but just a couple incidents of copper theft to relate....

A few years ago, my son saw a man and woman pulling copper from the light poles in the median of the interstate. He actually got film of it with his dash cam. He called the local police, the sheriff's office and the highway patrol. None of them cared. They all said it wasn't their responsibility to respond to.

A couple years later he again saw a man pulling copper from the light poles in another median between the other interstate loop around the town. Again getting much of the same responses from the law enforcement agencies he called. However this time he was emphatic and commented that the safety of other drivers on the interstate was being impacted by the person's vehicle being parked on the interstate which is only for emergency parking. There was also a traffic camera nearby and my son ask the local police dispatcher to take a look at it. So the local police responded caught the guy and it all made big new on the local TV.

Copper theft is rampant as is theft of catalytic converters. I don't think that it's something police really want to do anything for. Showing up when the crime is in progress probably is considered by them as just too dangerous to them or that it leaves them in situations where they'll wind up being liable for something. Pretty much, they just are there to let you file a report for the insurance claims.

indyfabz

Converter theft happens in the middle of the night, when there is no one around to witness and call the police. So unless police stumble on it, there is little prevention. I know a guy who had his stolen, and at least two school bus lots in the area were hit in the last year. All were in the middle of the night.

Wileyrat

I retired this year from one of the big telecom companies that used to end in Bell, and copper theft was insane. We recycled our scrap, and thieves would drive in and ransack our scrap bins. Our repair crews would respond to an outage, only to find hundreds of feet of cable missing. The worst was when they would cut a fiber cable expecting to find copper, and just move on. I’ve seen that result in everything from downed internet to the loss of 911 calls, and towns being isolated from communicating with the outside world.

Not good.

rsbob 

Worked for the same. Isn’t fiber splicing fun? I trained in it when blackmailed by you know who.

veganbikes

Get good bright solid lights on the bike. A low lumen or lux light with a poor beam pattern is not a good light. The only reason for those sort of lights is really for kids or as a backup to my backup. What I would recommend is looking at some good lights the Kryptonite X6 or X8 is a really good light (I do not care for their locks) it has a good beam pattern and a nice cut off at the top so it is not blinding people. What that does is makes you more visible and allows you to see better. Plus with their rear light the XBR it has a accelerometer in it so as you slow down it gets brighter.

This won't stop the people damaging lights but that doesn't matter here because even with good street lights you still need good personal lights on the bike first second and third and then start looking at other lights like on the helmet or other places.

CrimsonEclipse

Illumination selection is extensive, but I'll try to keep it short.
I go the cheap and modular way.
Modular meaning, I can replace the batteries (quickly and easily) when they fail.

So my go to helmet light is a Fenix E12 single AA battery mounted with a twofish or knockoff rubber mount using a rechargeable battery and a Duracell backup.
The beam isn't that wide but it's light (I'll find a flooding lens and glue it on or something)
For the handle bar you can go for one or two small flashlights 2 AA with rubber block mounts.
(mini mag or one of a million variations from $5-400)
((the $15-20 models are fine))
All would be sufficient for commuter riding.

For MTB trails I have a couple of Victagen chinese made lights that have 18650 batteries that can be removed with a few screws.
The problem with chinese electronics is that 10's or 100's of companies share (or steal) the manufacturing and the quality can vary wildly for similar looking items.
Victagen lights cost me $15 for one 1600 lumins and $25 for the other 5000(?) lumins
They work, odd design choices, but cheap and work, so yay.

prairiepedaler

Oh well, at least it isn't as bad as South Africa

RCMoeur 

On the pathway near my house along Cave Creek Wash*, they ended placing boulders on top of each pull box and welding all the pole handholes shut to reduce theft. Seems to be working for now. Farther north, the path is dark at night, with every pull box smashed out years ago.

When they dedicated the Arizona Canal Diversion Channel path in the early 1990s, they placed two large bronze plaques to commemorate the event and provide a map. Then in 2011 or so, someone helped themselves to those plaques, and now the pedestal sits empty like two giant sightless eyes staring to the south.

*Yes, "creek" and "wash" are redundant, but that's what it's called.

Wileyrat

Seattle-ish huh?

Born and raised up there (Renton HS 77) hired on with PNB in 78. Spliced copper, both c and maintenance from 90 until I transferred to Tucson in late 99. I trained to splice fiber, but I managed to stay out of it, doing eq installations, turn-ups, and outside power instead.

Chuck M 

Our MUP does not have lighting except for about a 3/4 mile loop around a very small lake and they are solar. Our city parks are supposed to be “closed” between sunset and sunrise and I think that stands for the pathway system that connects them all, but this is not enforced. There are some sections that I wish had some lighting as I would probably utilize them to commute to work, but I have encountered homeless folks sleeping in the tunnels which isn’t safe for them or a cyclist should one get ran over.