Fresno City College students are concerned about an increase bike theft around campus. As a cyclist on the FCC campus, I went out to gather the information and share some insights about this predicament.
Because I’ve had bikes stolen before, I asked SCCCD Police Department Chief Joseph Callahan to shed some lights on this issue. What we know is that since January 2011, 105 bikes have been reported stolen on campus. That means a bike is stolen every 2.8 days. These crimes take place throughout the day, all over campus, from early morning to the late evenings. Even with stake-outs and surveillance, Chief Callahan acknowledges it’s hard to cover the 99 acres of the college.
The police department has been able to identify a group of people stealing bikes. The bike thieves are known to be Meth-users who live north of the Health Science buildings. They are banned from campus. However, this ban is difficult to enforce due to the open campus policy. While some of these people are known and can be identified, others are not which doesn’t make FCC students feel secure about risking their bikes on a rack. It’s nice to know though who some of the criminals are.
With little resources and bicycles without registration or recorded serial numbers, it’s very difficult to recover a stolen bike. With recovery almost impossible, the best scenario is to not get the bike stolen in the first place. The Internet has a plethora of information regarding the prevention of stolen bikes. There are the stories about the embarrassment and shame of getting a bike stolen. But, this article teaches how to ensure that you’ll never get a bike stolen ever again.
One of the easiest, cheapest and most obvious ways to prevent theft is to get a better lock. For the same price as a cable-lock, you can get a cheap U-lock. Why? Because they’re harder to break through. Thieves would break locks that are easier, yes? Make it harder.
Another obvious thing to do is to get another lock. Two is better than one! Many people get their wheels stolen, so why not get a lock just for that? It’s not logical to think that one bike only needs one lock. It’s logical to keep your bike as safe as possible! If you care about your bike, it shows. To a thief, more locks probably means you have your bike registered too, so why would a thief risk it?  If your bike looks like you don’t care about it, then a thief would probably think that you wouldn’t care if it’s stolen?
The best thing to do is to prepare for the worst and prevent the most skilled thieves. Get a U-lock, get another U-lock, and register your bike with the Free National Bike Registry.
Since 1984, the National Bike Registry (NBR) has been helping identify and return stolen bikes (and scooters) to their rightful owners. More than 48 percent of stolen bicycles are recovered every year by law enforcement, but only 5 percent are returned since they have no way to determine ownership. When a bicycle is labeled and registered in the NBR database, it can be easily identified by police and returned to its rightful owner. The NBR computer database is dedicated exclusively to bicycle registrations and is available FREE to law enforcement nationwide according to the NBR website.
There are too many students who get their bikes stolen. We need bikes to get to school, and for some people, it’s their first form of transportation. Bikes are not cheap for those who could barely afford the one they have.  We ride bikes because we can’t afford a car to begin with. It’s possible to dramatically reduce the theft that occurs on campus and the frustration of those who get them stolen. Don’t become a victim; you have the right to your property and the right to choose how you get around.