Backed by the UK Motorcycle Industry Association, the Master Security Scheme is the first national and official motorcycle anti-theft scheme and since January of 2013 52,687 new motorcycles and scooters have been protected and registered.
Approximately 26,000 motorcycles and scooters are stolen every year in the UK, with around half of that figure stolen in Greater London alone. Following a recent meeting of the Motorcycle Crime Reduction Group the MCI have published statistics that show that a MASTER tagged bike is nearly four times less likely to be stolen than a bike which is not protected by the nationwide scheme.
Of the 52,687 new two wheelers registered on the scheme since January of last year only 403 have been stolen, with a recovery rate of 37% as of last week and the police aware of the locations of a number of other tagged stolen bikes, which will lead to them taking official action in the coming weeks.
Historic data has shown that 2.6% of motorcycles and scooters in the UK are stolen each year. With more than a years worth of data, the theft rate for Master Security Scheme tagged bikes sits at just 0.76%.
Stuart Kenward, CEO of the MCI admits that we are yet to develop a full picture stating that “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.”
However if we look at the early figures, if all bikes were MASTER tagged this could mean around 18,000 less two wheel thefts per year in Britain!
