OK it didn’t <really> do that. But I’m in a ranty mood. So if you’re looking for a well thought out post, you’re in the wrong place today my friend.

I’ve spent twenty years telling people that security is a shared responsibility, that we’re all in this together, that with the right controls and a risk-based approach we can create a safer environment for everyone. Then someone nicked my bike from a “secure” car park and I realised the entire thing is a brilliant scam.

Let me walk you through the con.

The Points System Is a Protection Racket

Three points. Midnight. Empty road. Average speed camera that doesn’t care about context, only velocity. The system caught me doing something statistically harmless and punished me with a penalty that had nothing to do with actual risk. It wasn’t about safety. It was about revenue dressed up as deterrence.

I feel the parallels to the likes of PCI DSS. Doesn’t matter that your actual risk is nil. Doesn’t matter that the specific context of your environment makes the violation meaningless. You hit the threshold. The policy triggered. Now you pay.

The insurance company doesn’t care that I was on an empty stretch of tarmac at midnight. They care that their actuarial table has a box that says “three points = higher premium.” The calculation has no room for nuance. It’s automated. It’s fair, apparently, because it applies to everyone equally. Which is another way of saying it’s equally stupid for everyone.

I downgraded my bike. Smaller engine, lower insurance group, fewer cubic centimetres of risk profile. I followed the rules of the system. I made myself less of a target. I complied.

Then someone stole it.

Secure Car Parks and Security Theatre

The car park at Excel London feels like it should be secure. There are cameras, barriers, security guards, even an entry fee, which is the universal signal that someone is taking responsibility for something.

However, put on your reading glasses, take out a magnifying glass, and the terms and conditions which I obviously didn’t read until after the bike was gone, make it perfectly clear they accept no liability for theft. The cameras are there, but not for your benefit. The barriers keep people out who haven’t paid, not people who’ve come to take what isn’t theirs. Security theatre at its finest. It exists to make you feel safe enough to pay the fee, not to actually keep your things safe.

The security exists to satisfy someone else’s checklist, not to protect your assets. It’s there so that when the breach happens, the organisation can point at the controls and say, “We did everything reasonable.” Reasonable is a legal term. It means enough to avoid negligence claims, not enough to actually stop the attacker.

The Insurance Is the Scam

Now I’m trying to insure a replacement bike that doesn’t exist yet because I can’t afford to buy one without knowing what the insurance will cost. Every quote I get is higher than the last one.

I’m being penalised for someone else’s crime.

This is not insurance. What I’m experiencing is a system that punishes you for encountering the risk it was supposed to protect you from. The moment you need it, it recalculates your value and charges you more for the privilege of continuing to be a customer.

Everyone Takes a Cut, No One Takes Responsibility

The speed camera company gets paid per infraction. The insurance company gets paid in premiums that only go up. The car park gets paid for access to a space with cameras that don’t prevent theft. The police take a report and give me a crime reference number, which is helpful for precisely nothing except filling in forms.

At every layer, someone is extracting value while providing something that looks like security but functions like a tax.

What I’m Left With

Three points I didn’t deserve. A bike I no longer have. An insurance market that has pretty much priced me out of replacing it.

Maybe the whole thing is a con. Maybe security real security, the kind that actually prevents bad things from happening to you is impossible to buy because it doesn’t scale, can’t be automated, and won’t fit neatly into a contract that limits liability. Maybe what we’re all paying for is the right to say we tried, and the comfort of knowing that when it goes wrong, it won’t technically be our fault.

I’m not saying burn it all down. But I understand why so many motorcyclists have tiny number plates, or plate flippers which can’t be read by cameras. I understand why people will drive without insurance, or adequate insurance. I understand why people take two heavy duty chains with them to tie their bike up when they stop even for a coffee. Not saying it’s right, but I get it. Because in my instance, it feels like everyone got paid and I got robbed.