Pickpocket Alarm
Approx construction cost US$14.40
It’s in the bag if you want to dodge the artful pickpocket!
There is safety in numbers, or so the saying goes, and it is certainly true that one feels a lot safer even at night when walking along a busy high street than along a deserted side street or alley. Despite this, it is probably more likely that you will be robbed in a large crowd than in an almost deserted side street, because a large crowd is a favorite haunt of pickpockets.
The skill of these people has to be seen (or not seen!) to be believed, and relies on a basic human response. If somebody steps on your toe or bumps into you, the brain’s attention is instantly directed towards this and is unlikely to register a light touch on some other area of the body, especially a relatively remote one such as a coat pocket. Women are perhaps even more vulnerable because they tend to keep all of their possessions in one neat package – a handbag (purse in America) – so that the thief is almost guaranteed in finding something more valuable than in an empty pocket, and there is far less likelihood of the victim feeling anything.
The Pickpocket Alarm presented here is thus intended to provide a warning that the handbag is being interfered with. While not providing a deterrent, it should certainly give the would-be pickpocket something else to think about and either cause him to run off empty handed or at least prevent him from having another “dip” thus limiting your loss. Although it is designed primarily for use with a handbag, with a little ingenuity it could equally be applied to a pocket in a coat or jacket.
More details on this construction project can be found in the August 2002 issue of EPE Online, the world's first web-delivered electronics and computing hobbyist magazine.
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