With college in full swing for the fall semester, students should be aware of bike theft.
A 1994 study of bicycle theft on college campuses found the average student had a 53 percent chance of having their bike stolen. Thieves also got a helping hand earlier this year with the discovery that many “U-Lock” style locks can be compromised with a simple ballpoint pen.
While many major campuses run their own bike registration efforts, Hance points out these registries are useless if the bike is recovered outside of that campus.
“Most campuses do a good job maintaining their own registration and ‘hot’ lists,” says Hance, “but stolenbicycleregistry.com takes that idea to the next level. My site lets anyone with a computer, or even a cell phone, run a bike’s serial number and check its status. And listing a stolen bicycle is free.

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