My bicycle's front lamp has been stolen AGAIN. I thus far have spent over 100 Eur on bicycle lamps that can be slid onto a mount on the bike, and more on rechargeable batteries for them. This needs to stop but I need a solution where I don't need to carry the lamps with me. For this, I tried to think like a thief, but it just doesn't compute. Why the hell would someone steal a bicycle lamp!? It doesn't make any sense to me.
I glue the lamps to the mount so they cannot be removed by people still steal them. Sometimes I can see that someone tried to steal my lights (for example when they point straight up into the sky when I come back; someone obviously tried to yank it off but failed), so it provides some improvement, but my lights still get stolen. What do thieves do with lamps where half the mount is still glued to the lamp because all they were able to do is yank it off so hard that the mount ripped apart?
This isn't just a rant. I need a solution and I think it'll help me to know what they want so I can stop providing them a way to get what they want.
I found this answer to a somewhat related question which only mentions reuse and vandalism. It should be obvious that you can't easily reuse a lamp if you had to yank it off so hard it breaks the mount. Now I had my bike vandalized on several occasions (things obviously no one profits from like spokes kicked in) but the only thing that has ever been stolen from my bike are lamps (the front lamp more often than the taillight). This is despite the fact that you could easily steal other things. The linked answer mentions seats. My seat can be removed in about a second without any tools because it's held in place by a quick release. It's definitely something specific about lights in my case.