Bike theft is a topic that gets lots of air play these days. We probably know the basic facts, but, curiously no one has so far produced a statistic that would help us understand the probability of having a properly U-locked bike stolen (here in town, or anywhere). Gerald Fittipaldi recently ventured that upwards of 95% of bikes stolen on the PSU campus were *not* locked with a U-lock, but beyond that all we hear are anecdotes. One would think that the Bike Theft Task Force would have some figures.
My understanding of the relative security of different locking methods is that although most any bike lock can be defeated with available technology (bolt cutters, battery powered angle grinder, etc.) the time, spectacle, noise associated with cracking a U-lock makes it far (10x? 100x?) less likely to be attempted than just taking an unlocked bike, a bike where only the front wheel secured with a QR was locked, or snipping a cable lock. But those are just hunches. I would like to see a number so in our conversations here we can cut to the chase.