Protect Against Bike Theft: Register It with Decatur Police

Decatur Metro | October 15, 2013 | 9:33 am

Sgt Ross with Decatur PD sends along this info…

Decatur Police registered 79 bicycles at the 2nd Annual Decatur F. Ave Falcons’ Bike Derby on October 5th.  The purpose of registering your bicycle is in the event it is lost, found or stolen.  Bicycles have unique serial numbers that allow for police to enter stolen bicycles onto the stolen property database.  If the bicycle is later recovered, it can then be returned to its owner.  Bike registration also helps reunite abandoned bicycles with their owners.  If you are a city resident and wish to have your bicycle(s) registered with the Decatur Police Department, please contact Sgt. Dana Canipe at  or[email protected] .

If you do not wish to formally register your bicycle(s) with the police department, please document the make, model and serial numbers for your bicycles in the event it is lost or stolen.

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2 Responses to “Protect Against Bike Theft: Register It with Decatur Police”

  1. putin says:
    October 15, 2013 at 11:06 am

    Misleading title…how does registering your bike protect against your bike getting stolen? Maybe for recovery, but not the actual theft.

  2. Safety-Fast says:
    October 15, 2013 at 3:26 pm

    Not necessarily. If every bike were registered, it seems reasonable to expect that criminals would move onto stealing things they would have a greater chance of keeping (or selling without getting caught).

    Granted, registered cars are stolen all the time, but the question is, how many more auto thefts would there be if there was no way of proving who the real owner was? Of course there are other factors in play in that analogy, such as the relative return on a stolen car vs. stolen bike, ease of stealing, etc.

    By a similar analogy, a locked door (or alarm) doesn’t prevent all burglary attempts, but it likely prevents some.

    Programs like this work best when it is known to the criminals that almost every item has been registered, so it’s just not worth their time (or risk) to find the relatively few that are not. At the very least, if not registering, please record your serial numbers and make/model of everything you own. Even the smallest, cheapest thing hawked at a pawn shop can break a case provided the owner is able to provide that information at the time of loss.