MAG demands more from police forces as 'Fight Motorcycle Theft' campaign launched

The Motorcycle Action Group, otherwise known as MAG, has re-launched its ‘Fight Motorcycle Theft’ campaign with a view to limiting how many motorcycles are stolen each year.

This comes after the Metropolitan Police could not state how many motorcycles are stolen in a year without manually checking close to 100,000 vehicle theft records, according to a report from MAG. 

Theft has been an ongoing issue when it comes to motorcycles in the UK for far too long, and as a result MAG has launched several campaigns over the years. 

This latest campaign prioritises four key areas, which are called Counted, Apprehended, Secured, and Returned. 

Within those categories are specific actions that MAG is convinced police forces need to be using as part of their attempts to crack down on motorcycle theft.

The campaign’s requirements are as follows: “That motorcycle theft be recorded as its own crime classification, rather than folded into general vehicle theft (Counted); that police response prioritise identification and charging over sentence length (Apprehended); that motorcycles and motorcycle parking be built and provided to resist theft (Secured); and that police forces adopt a written protocol for responding to live vehicle-tracker alerts (Returned).”

The report went on to provide details about some of the impacts motorcycle theft is having in the UK, including a Freedom of Information response from West Midlands Police that was received on 4 August 2026, which found that 21 per cent of all fatal motorcycle collisions in the force’ area between 2021 and 2025 involved a stolen motorcycle.

It’s also worth knowing that police are allowed to authorise what’s called a ‘warrantless search’ of someone’s address, if electronic tracking data indicates that stolen property is present. That has been enforced since 29 June 2026.

However, MAG confirmed it received another Freedom of Information response, this time from the Metropolitan Police, received on 17 August 2026, which claims the force had no written protocol for responding to a live tracker activation alert. 

Colin Brown, MAG’s Director of Campaigns and Political Engagement, said this about the new campaign:

“We asked the Metropolitan Police how many motorcycles are stolen every year, and in writing, they told us they couldn’t say. You can’t fix a problem nobody is counting. Motorcycle theft has flared up as a national talking point every few years for over a decade, and every time it’s the same pattern: a bad summer, a police operation that runs hard for a few weeks, then fades. We’ve spent the past year building the evidence instead, and we intend to keep building it until something structural changes.”

Only time will tell if MAG’s latest campaign has the desired effect, and whether police can do more to stop thieves from stealing motorcycles.

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