Following a meeting of the Motorcycle Crime Reduction Group, which met this week, figures have been released which show a marked reduction in the theft of motorcycles which have been ‘tagged’ under the UK’s first national and official motorcycle anti-theft scheme.

52,687 new motorcycles and scooters have been protected and registered with the MASTER Security Scheme since January 2013, of which only 403 have been stolen.

This represents a theft rate of 0.76%, compared to an historic rate of 2.6% and means MASTER scheme tagged motorcycles are nearly 4 times less likely to be stolen.

Typically around 26,000 motorcycles or scooters were stolen every year, 50% of which are taken within Greater London. Using the current rates of theft, if all bikes were MASTER tagged this would mean c18,000 less motorcycles would be stolen each year.*

Of the 403 bikes which have been stolen, the current recovery rate (at the time of this week’s meeting) stands at 37%. In addition, the police are aware of the locations of a number of the remainder of the unrecovered bikes, which will be the subject of police action in the coming weeks.

Steve Kenward, CEO of the MCI said “11 major manufactures have been marking their bikes for over 12 months now, so we are in a position to begin evaluating the effectiveness of the MASTER Security Scheme. It will take another two years to see the full effects, as motorcycle theft is currently mostly centred on bikes of three years or less, but we are highly encouraged by the results we have seen so far.”

*Figure is the difference between 0.76% and 2.6% of the active parc, i.e. the theft rate of MASTER tagged bikes and the historic rate of theft.)

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