Bike thefts have risen to abnormal levels in the last weeks of the semester and both Campus Police and the Student Government Campus Safety Commission are taking efforts to ensure students are well protected.
Phillip Christofferson, the chairman of the Campus Safety Commission, said there were over 100 reported bike thefts over the semester, a notable increase compared to last year, and educating students is the best way to ensure such incidents are prevented.
“The Commission is working on new fliers to encourage students to make use of proper safety measures,” he said. “We want to inform students this is happening.”
According to Christofferson, thefts generally occur between 11 A.M. and 7 P.M., in broad daylight, and a majority of thefts occur on East Campus near the Honors Village.
“We encourage students to spend a little extra money and buy a U-bolt lock and to call the police if they see anything suspicious,” Christofferson said. “The police have been very helpful. They are doing everything they can to help prevent theft.”
Christofferson attributed the sudden hike in theft to the declining economy, saying bikes are easy to steal and easy to sell for small amounts of money.
Captain Jon Barnwell of Campus Police said the cause of the increase is the University being a target rich environment and students not using adequate protective measures.
“We continue to encourage students to use U-bolt locks and to register their bikes with Transportation,” he said. “Registering your bike increases the chances that Campus Police will be able to recover it if it’s stolen.”
Registering a bike with Transportation allows the owner to engrave his driver’s license number on his bike which is also entered into a database for future reference.
“We are constantly performing surveillance and checking pawn shops but it is difficult without a registered number,” Barnwell said. “These measures promote target hardening to secure bikes against theft. We are constantly rethinking ways to address this problem and send a message that this campus is secure.”
Campus police are hoping to reach a point where the community realizes the campus is safe so would-be thieves are less motivated to target students.
Dakota Evans, a freshman in marketing, said he had doubts as to how well campus security is addressing this problem.
“If these efforts are in place and bike theft is still on the rise then the system must not be too effective,” Evans said. “Campus security should increase the police force or have some designated bike parking areas and have them under surveillance.”
Evans said a more active system would make thieves easier to catch than with the current system as, even with bike registration, there are so many bikes on campus it’s impractical to try and say whose bike is whose.
Will Rush, a sophomore in business management, said he felt the campus was not as accessible to bike users as it could be.
“It seems like there’s a lack of places to chain up your bike,” he said. “It takes more effort to take when it’s locked up to something solid. There’s definitely room for improvement.”
According to Rush the U-bolt lock was not as essential compared to other possible measures both the University and students could be taking.
“Just make sure to use some kind of chain. I also take the seat off my bike because then it would be hard to ride off with it even if they broke the chain,” Rush said. “It would be great to have personal locators but I guess no one’s going to do that with a bike.”
