There is no doubt that bicycles are great for moving around campus. They are carbon-neutral and a good way to exercise as well. However, the rise in bicycle theft on campus makes students who use these vehicles reflect on how they utilize safety precautions when not riding. Despite precautions, many students are unaware of the prominence of bike theft and the measures that can be taken against it.
“It’s a problem that we face each fall for a lot of reasons,” Todd Badham, the Director of Security Services, said. “There’s a lot of new kids on campus who don’t understand, aren’t as familiar with what happens.” Badham also noted that the warmer weather allows for riding to continue, allowing riders to be outside, which results in more bicycles being stored on the outside bike racks.
While a numerical comparison has not been drawn between this season and last, Badham said that there seems to be a greater number of bicycle thefts this year than last. At the time of the interview with Badham, there had been 14 bicycles stolen since students returned to campus.
One of the problems with this area of crime is that there is no particular location from which the bicycles are stolen: anywhere with a rack for keeping bicycles can be a target. Campus’ often-full bike racks are attractive targets for thieves.
“It’s not completely unusual to see somebody ‘build a bike,’” Badham added, referring to the process of taking parts of bicycles and putting them together for sales. To prevent against this kind of theft, a second lock is recommended to keep the wheels attached to the frame, as well as a U-Bolt lock to keep the frame attached to the rack.
Craig Cowden has been a victim of this manner of theft. Very soon after getting to campus, Cowden used a U-Bolt lock through the front wheel, attaching it to the bike rack.
“They undid the front wheel, and just took the rest of the bike,” related Cowden. He also noted that there is “a huge used bike demand around college towns.”
“We haven’t had a problem with students who use the U-Bolt lock correctly,” Badham said. “That’s what we’re recommending.”
Some of the bike racks have signs posted by them telling students to use this type of lock.
Despite these warnings, not all the students take such precautions, and in fact, some ignore them completely. One patrol noted that there was a bicycle rack that had approximately 15 bicycles without any sort of safety mechanism. This behavior is only encouraging to those in the business of stealing bicycles.
“The more accommodating we are to the thieves by leaving bikes unsecured,” Badham warned, “the more likely they are to come back.”
The security director also admonishes those who might not care for their bikes, leaving them in vulnerable positions, because of this behavior; leaving a bicycle unsecured only encourages the theft to continue.
In addition to keeping the bicycles secured, campus security officer Brian Wong notes the importance of punctuality regarding bicycle safety.
“Immediately report suspicious activity,” Wong said, noting the behavior of students to wait until a more opportune moment to call security. As most bike thefts happen under the cover of night, utilizing the 24-hour schedule of campus security is vital to suppress any sort of illicit activity on campus grounds.
As a final precaution, Badham related the importance of keeping the serial number of a bicycle recorded. When “they [security/police officers] do find a stash of bikes…if they can identify the bikes through the serial numbers, you stand a better chance of getting it back.”
While the abolishment of bicycle theft might not be a realistic goal, there are still future goals and implementations to curtail the amount of crime on campus. Adding additional racks and having racks that fully utilize the ability of U-Bolt locks are just a couple of the many steps that can be taken to help reduce the rates of crime at the University. Security and students can work together to help lower crime rates and keep campus safe from illegal activity.
“We’ll continue to do that,” Badham said, “regardless of what the crime rate is.”
