Locking it up: how to keep your e-scooter from being stolen
A scooter is small, valuable and quick to grab — which makes it a magnet for thieves. The good news: theft is largely preventable, and the principles are the same ones cyclists have used for years. Here is how locks are rated, how to use them, and the free habits that improve your odds of getting one back. For more, see our anti-theft and parking guide.
Theft is rising, fast
This is not a hypothetical risk. In Los Angeles, police logged 1,046 stolen motorised devices in 2024 — up 22.3% on the year and more than four times the 2021 count. On one university campus, e-scooters made up about 90% of 2024 vehicle-theft reports. Micromobility is now a primary target, so a serious lock is not optional.
What lock ratings actually mean
The clearest standard is Sold Secure, which rates a lock by how long it resists a standardised attack. Bronze must survive at least 1 minute against basic tools; Silver at least 3 minutes against an enhanced tool list; Gold at least 5 minutes, and the top Diamond tier at least 5 minutes including a 90-second angle-grinder attack. Those tiers map to threat level: Bronze for the opportunist in a normal-risk area, up to Diamond for the most determined thief in the highest-risk spots. The tests are calibrated to real behaviour — the average thief wants to spend no more than about 2.5 minutes, so a five-minute lock buys you out of most attacks.
Cable locks are barely locks
The single most common mistake is trusting a cable. Police crime-prevention advice is to use a hardened steel U-lock rather than a cable, because cheap locks and cables are easily cut — and a cable can be cut in about a second, so it should only ever supplement a hardened lock, never be the primary one. A flimsy lock is a false sense of security.
Lock it the right way
A good lock used badly still loses the scooter. Three rules from police and insurers: lock through the frame, never just a wheel — a thief can undo the wheel and walk off with the rest; secure it to an immovable anchor like a fixed rack or signpost whose thick metal is set in the ground; and park in a well-lit, well-travelled spot, or bring it indoors if you can. Where possible, the safest “lock” is no street-parking at all.
Record the serial — and register it
If the worst happens, a serial number is how you get it back. Police advise recording your serial number, because you will likely need it to reclaim a recovered vehicle. Better still, register it in a recovery database — Bike Index is a non-profit registry with over 1.7 million catalogued machines that lets anyone register and reunite recovered vehicles. Photograph the scooter and note its serial today, not after it is gone.
App locks are a deterrent, not a lock
Many scooters offer an electronic or app lock that disables the motor or sounds an alarm. Useful as a deterrent — useless as your only defence: electronic locks can be bypassed, and a determined thief simply carries the powered-off scooter away, so always pair them with a robust physical lock. Treat the electronics as one layer on top of a real lock.
The insurance angle
If you insure the scooter, the lock is usually a condition of cover. An ETA bicycle policy, for instance, can be invalidated if you fail to secure the bike with a Sold Secure rated lock through the frame to an immovable object, and insurers scale the required rating to value — typically a Gold lock for higher-value machines, with a lower or unrated lock potentially voiding a theft claim. So the right-rated lock is not just security — it is what keeps your claim valid. A Sold Secure lock through the frame to a fixed anchor, in a busy lit spot, with the serial registered: that is most of theft prevention, and most of it is free.