The bike thieves in Davis are making more money than the alumni. Why are there not more resources in place to put a dent in their success rate? Look at the University of Pacific program to deter bike thefts. If the parents were asked for donations for this cause, I’ll bet the college would receive enough money to fund the program. Let’s catch these low-lifes who are making a real good living stealing our bikes!
DAVE MARTIN
I’m writing in response to the campus bike theft issue. I am director of Bike Revolution.org, a free, global bike registration and security service recently partnered with Kryptonite locks.
BR uses social media, scannable tags and mobile apps to fight bike crime. The objective of the partnership is to offer new and better security products and services to the cycling communities on an off campus in an effort to curb bike theft and recover bikes.
Many campus security offices are deluged by bike crime reports and are simply understaffed to cope. Some campuses have put together a bike registration scheme, in order to fight bike theft. This again adds pressure on campus safety resources to administer such a system.
Bike Revolution and Kryptonite are reaching out to cycling associations, police, bike clubs, local governments, bike mags, bike coalitions and bike shops to get the word out about the new service. The service is designed to work with existing bike registrars, stolen bike lists and anti-theft organizations by providing a global database of registered bikes. BR has a number of partners already in place.
As a first step, BR is also asking all cyclists to register their bikes and any organizations to share stolen bike data by placing it on the global site in order to increase the effectiveness of recovering stolen bikes. The more registered bikes, the more recovered bikes. It works in Norway and Holland , both of which have programs in place and which have seen high bike registrations resulting in higher bike recoveries and lower bike theft.
Bike Revolution is also asking cyclists to help fight global bike theft, starting in your neighbourhood. You can do this by first registering your bike on the BR site. Given the nature of the student during his university days; moving from home to school to job, keeping bike registration details up to date in various locations can be difficult at best. With BR, even if a cyclist moves, their bike registration moves with them and their can be traced back to them as the site is global in coverage. While global, the service offers localized geo-tagging which helps when listing a stolen bike, sending out stolen bike alerts, and soon, viewing recovered bikes online. Bike Revolution’s objective is to create local online neighbourhoods using localized social media alerts and content to fight bike theft, and in the result of a bike being stolen, to aid in its recovery.
The company is funded by the sale of the scannable Pulse ID tags that attach to the bike. The tags are a visible theft deterrent; unique, scannable, very difficult to remove and tamper evident. By year end, Bike Revolution and Kryptonite will offer these tags to bike retailers. The tags can be read by free apps on mobile phones. This means anybody, not just the police, can scan a bike, check it’s status, and report it’s location from a mobile phone.
The use of mobile apps, social networking and scannable tags is a unique way to deter bike theft but it all starts by getting cyclists to register the serial# of the bike. It is the only thing connecting the cyclist to his bike.
The Bike Revolution service is free to all. If cyclists do wish to add another level of protection, the Pulse ID tags can be purchased from a retailer later in the year. If you are a campus safety department, bicycle coalition, local government, bike club, police organization or bike related entity and wish to offer the tags to your members or constituents, Bike Revolution has special pricing for this purpose.
For more information on how Kryptonite and Bike Revolution will work together, please click here: http://www.kryptonitelock.com/Pages/KryptoniteBikeRevolution.aspx or http:www.bikerevolution.org
Regards,
Briand Beausoleil
Director
Bike Revolution.org