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Notes -
I use these sorts of bikes occasionally. They cost x¢/min, starting when you unlock and totaled up when you relock. If you don't re-lock the bike, the meter just keeps on ticking. I'm not sure what happens eventually, maybe the rider who's account checked it out gets billed for the "stolen" bike. But the way the QR system works, it isn't particularly possible to grab someone else's bike by mistake. It is possible to be grabbing the last bike (or the last "good" bike, all the rest having flat tires or rusty chains or the like) and someone else to take issue with that. I don't think that happened here. I think a group on young men wanted to grab a free bike, and were expecting to get it through some combination of the target's niceness reflex, confusion as to how the unlock system works (while the target is trying to figure out how the "misunderstanding" happened, the bike is already gone), and the implicit intimidation of a group of agressive youths. In this case, it didn't work, she froze up, got confused, knew something was wrong, and tried to attract bystanders. Then a helpful person re-locked the bike, completely ruining the young men's intent to get a free bike that someone else will be billed for.
Lots of people, (Midwestern Americans and Canadians, in particular) have a niceness reflex; when you, say, trip on someone else's foot, the kneejerk assumption is that you were being inattentive and just stepped on a person's toes; you say "sorry" and yield to them, it taking a moment or two to realize that you've been intentionally tripped. Other people do not have this reflex, either because of their cultural background or because they're dicks; either way, these people notice the niceness reflex of others and try to exploit it.
I also see these bikes left in yards in my (shitty) neighborhood. Now I know how they got there and why the rider doesn't care about being billed for them.
Of note - this is highly adaptable. When I lived in the DC, the mental strategy that I developed for exploitation of niceness or just general belligerence was advice that I'd picked up from (oddly) Adam Carolla - always have a "go fuck yourself" chambered. I employed this a decent number of times and I don't think it was ever at an inappropriate target, but being inclined to respond to someone with a well-earned, "go fuck yourself" was something I had to actively cultivate. Then I moved to the upper Midwest and discovered that this skill was no longer useful, I just didn't need it for anything, and the mental tension of being ready to tell people to fuck off was a poor tradeoff here.
Once again, I encourage decent people to abandon the hellholes on the coasts unless you're personally dedicated to the political project of trying to reform them. There's three thousand miles of country that doesn't require you to assume the worst of everyone you encounter.
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