In order to curb the number of bicycle thefts, Minister of Justice Peter Hummelgaard (S) wants to give the police the opportunity to stop random cyclists without concrete suspicion.
Last December, the minister floated the possibility of enabling the police to stop cyclists on the cycle path to check license plates.
Now a specific legislative proposal has just been submitted for consultation.
This is written by Jyllands-Posten.
By stopping random cyclists, more bike thieves should be detected, while also returning more stolen bikes to the rightful owner.
– It cannot be right that you cannot leave your bicycle at home or at work without worrying about whether it will be stolen, says Peter Hummelgaard to Jyllands-Posten.
– This applies regardless of whether it is a very expensive bicycle or grandfather’s old bicycle. We have to do something about the many bicycle thefts.
The intensified efforts against bicycle theft must ensure that it becomes more difficult to resell stolen bicycles, it says.
With the current legislation, it is not permitted for the police to stop cyclists to check the bike’s frame number without a concrete suspicion that the bike is stolen.
According to figures from Statistics Denmark, there were 48,305 reports of bicycle theft in Denmark in 2023.
That number has increased in recent years, as in 2021 there were less than 38,000 reports of bicycle theft nationwide.
Most bicycle thefts are reported in Copenhagen Municipality. More than 17,000 bicycle thefts were reported in the capital last year.
Four years ago, the Copenhagen Police carried out a raid against random cyclists.
A total of 3,800 cyclists were stopped to have their frame numbers checked.
It dropped 30 charges for riding a bicycle that had been reported stolen.
/ritzau/
Source: www.kristeligt-dagblad.dk
