Motorcycle theft is a growing criminal activity in certain parts of the world. Things in London, however, is in a different level altogether. There were over 14,000 motorcycle thefts reported in London the last year, and 23,430 crimes were committed using motorcycles that were stolen of course.

On an average, 65 bikes are stolen per day and to crack this atrocity, London Mayor Sadiq Khan spoke about manufacturers incorporating better anti-theft measures into their products to make it difficult for people just to whisk away bike without authorization. And the first signs of this effort has been shown by Honda UK who has committed to fit all their new products with tracking equipment free-of-charge.

When Sadiq Khan invited manufacturers to the summit, Honda, Suzuki, Yamaha, BMW, and Piaggio were present and the first manufacturer to act over is the Japanese Red Winger. It has joined hands with the UK based Datatool, a Scorpion Automotive Ltd initiative, a trusted provider of vehicle security since 1973.

Honda, as a matter of fact, has equipped a few of its models with the H.I.S.S (Honda Ignition Security System) immobilizer system for theft prevention as standard in a few markets. But as a tracking point, it does not do much. This is where Datatool’s Trakking system comes into play.

It is a full 24/7 monitoring and recovery assistance that works on a GPS/GSM based tracking and theft recovery service designed to first alert you via SMS text message of a potential theft. It will then provide a method of monitoring and promptly recovering the bike or scooter if a theft does occur by liaising with the Police on the owner’s behalf to aid recovery.

The device gets activated as soon as the ignition is detected to be switched off and monitors the vehicle until the designated key starts back the ignition. Unless the vehicle is confirmed stolen, the device does not record the journey history or log speed data. The full journey and speed data is retained and can be made available to the Police if required in order to aid in securing a criminal conviction.

All Honda UK dealers will retrofit this device for free-of-cost to all road legal products. But the owners will have to pay a monthly subscription cost of around £10 ($13) per month. Honda dealers are also offering discounted purchase and installation prices for existing owners.

The Mayor said: “It is essential that the manufacturers step up to help us tackle this problem at the source. Put simply, the design of motorcycles make them far too easy to steal, and this must be dealt with head-on at the point of design if we are to rid our streets of these crimes.”