I've gone through 5 bikes over my time in Brussels.
2 pretty much just disintegrated while riding. 3 were stolen.
When I told my friends and colleagues who'd been in the city a bit longer than I had, the answer was always the same.
"Brussels, right?"
This was a few years ago, at a time when my bike was my primary mode of transport in the city.
"Maybe you should buy a better lock," I was advised when bike one was stolen.
I did, for a third of the cost of the first brand new bike I had bought myself. Ever.
Someone cut through it with an angle grinder, leaving the lock behind but my bike gone.
"Brussels, right?" I was told once again.
I've lived in Belgium for less than ten years. Turns out that for the past ten years, there's been a way for Brussels to fight bike crime, and by all accounts, it's been stuck in administrative hell.
Because, almost ten years after first considering the idea, the Brussels police may only just now be able to implement “bait-bikes” equipped with GPS trackers to lure and follow would-be-thieves.
That's huge. Read more here.
Got any stories on bike theft? Ever managed to get a stolen one back?
Let @johnstonjules know on Twitter.
Belgium in Brief is a free daily roundup of the top stories to get you through your lunch break conversations. To receive it straight to your inbox every day, sign up below:
1. Don’t prioritise high-risk patients for Covid-19 vaccine, says N-VA
Several Members of the Federal Parliament from N-VA have supported the call from doctors to start vaccinating against the new coronavirus (Covid-19) per age group, rather than focussing on high-risk patients.
“Leave behind the prioritisation of high-risk patients,” said N-VA politicians Kathleen Depoorter, Frieda Gijbels and Yoleen Van Camp in an opinion piece published in Knack on Thursday. Read More.
2. EU divided on Covid-19 ‘vaccination passports’ for travel
As a growing number of Covid-19 vaccines are being approved and vaccination campaigns are taking off, discussions are turning towards the possible introduction of a “vaccination passport” allowing vaccinated people to travel freely.
With no clear European consensus, the idea is now proving polarizing – with countries whose economy heavily relies on tourism pleading in favour, while others warn it would be discriminatory. Here’s where they stand.
3. An epidemic of chilblains: Is there a link with Covid-19?
Dermatologists and family doctors are reporting unusual numbers of young people with chilblains, prompting the question: Is there a possible link with the Covid-19 pandemic?
Chilblains, or perniosis, is a condition affecting the fingers and toes, in which blood seeps into the surrounding tissues and causes redness, itching, inflammation and sometimes blisters. Read more.
4. ‘Better to start all over again’: what’s wrong with Flemish contact tracing?
Flanders’ contact tracing system – a crucial first line of defence against the coronavirus – is still struggling with many teething troubles nine months after it was launched, causing experts to plead for a complete restart.
At the start of the second wave, the Flemish contact tracing system was not ready, and it is still suffering from an accumulation of problems behind the scenes today, a report by the investigative VRT programme ‘Pano’ showed on Wednesday. Read More.
5. Civilian staff could soon be manning Belgium’s border
Civilian police staff in Brussels Airport could soon be given border control responsibilities normally reserved for police in order to make up for a shortage of French- and Dutch-speaking staff.
Federal Police Commissioner General Marc De Mesmaeker told La Dernière Heure that he is considering entrusting certain border control tasks at the airport to CALOG personnel, the civilian branch of the police. Read More.
6. Volunteers in Brussels needed to test new German CureVac vaccine
A Brussels-based study expected to start this month is asking 2,000 people to sign up as volunteers to test a new and promising vaccine candidate from German company CureVac.
Those participating in the study, which is the Belgian segment of a worldwide phase III trial involving a total of 32,500 people, will receive their first shot within a week and a half. Read More.
7. Belgian brand pulls ‘simp’ sweater after social media backlash
Belgian clothing brand JBC has announced that it will no longer sell a sweater with the word “simp” on the front after it faced backlash on social media.
The slang word – voted teen word of the year in a VRT poll – has had a multitude of meanings, but is currently commonly defined as a term describing a person who performs excessive sympathy and attention toward another person, generally in pursuit of a sexual relationship.
This definition, however, was not the one JBC had consulted. Read More.
Jules Johnston
The Brussels Times
