Chilean engineering students have designed a prototype bicycle that they say cannot be stolen, which in theory would quickly become a must-have for incoming freshmen.
On their Facebook page, the creators of the "Yerka" bill the vehicle as "the first unstealable bicycle." Like the "Seatylock" in Brooklyn and the "Denny" in Seattle, the Yerka uses its own parts to act as a lock, eliminating the need to buy a chain.
According to the Associated Press, the three creators - Cristobal Cabello, Andres Roi Eggers and Juan Jose Monsalve - came up with the idea during a college engineering course.
"That's why our motto is 'a bike that gets stolen is no longer a bike.' What we have here is truly an unstealable bike," Cabello told the AP.
A video posted by @yerkaproject on Jul 7, 2014 at 12:02pm PDT
Many streets in Chile are reportedly going the way of college campuses and becoming increasingly bike friendly to try and lessen day-to-day reliance on automobiles. There are more bike-sharing programs, cycling lanes along roads and racks to leave them. But with more bike usage comes more bike thefts.
Dr. Cristobal Galban, director of the sustainability research center at Santiago's Andres Bello University, said his bike was recently stolen. Ironically enough, he led a study in 2013 on how the usage of bicycles in Chile doubled in the last five years.
"The main problem in Chile and elsewhere are the robberies, so the Yerka could help solve this," he told the AP.
This type of bike would seem like a natural fit on college campuses, especially given the sizes of some of the countries most prominent institutions. With such a condensed population of students getting from A to B, biking is often the best medium between driving a car and walking.
The Yerka Project students are currently seeking a $300,000 investment, the AP reported, which would help produce 1,000 units. If successful, the bikes could go on sale toward the middle months of 2015.
