Bike locking: Take your front wheel with you, and just leave the bike?

Over the last few weeks ORTRE has had an add running, promoting the locking of ones front wheel, preferably with one of our locks {ORTRE BI5}.  It pretty fair to say that the gold standard for locking ones bike is too lock the rear wheel and the frame to a secure object with one lock, and lock the front wheel to your frame, or a a secure object with another lock.

To my surprise the other day I saw the bike pictured below. The rider of this bike had a totally different concept. Take your front wheel with you and leave the rest of the bike, rendered unrideable, behind. In many ways it makes a lot of sense.

I do hope that I see the situation correctly, its possible the bike could have been left there and someone had just stolen the front wheel. But most unlikely.