When City Hall uses precious dollars from it's budget to pay
for public parking bays featuring wheel locks, its a sign
that motorcycle thefts are out of hand.
The Kuala Lumpur City Hall has allocated part of its
budget to build 3,300 motorcycle parking bays installed with
wheel locks by the end of this year. The Malaysian city has
just launched a Motorcycle Wheel Lock campaign aimed at the
estimated 1,102,823 riders who use the city roads.
According to a report by the Kuala Lumpur Criminal
Investigation Department (CID), there were 7,190 cases of
stolen or missing motorcycles in 2006, 7,604 in 2007 and
3,184 till May this year in Kuala Lumpur.
According to officials, at present, 961 wheel locks have
been or are being fixed at seven locations in the city. Its
estimated that motorcycles make up 30% of the traffic in the
city of Kuala Lumpur.
Other ways officials hope to help the city's bikers;
- Making it mandatory for developers to provide
motorcycle-parking bays at their development projects.
- Build more motorcycle shelters under overhead
bridges or along the roadsides for the safety of the
motorcyclists and other road users.
- Provide dedicated motorcycle lanes along the major
city roads. The project will undergo a trial run before
the end of the year.
Although use of the locks are currently being provided
for free at the motorcycle parking bays, if riders don't
participate in the program and thefts continue to increase,
officials may turn the parking system over to private
companies who will be allowed to impose a fee.
