Northern California - Bay Area Stolen Bike Database

A friend of mine's bike was stolen, and in his frustration with bike theft in general started a stolen bike database to track stolen bikes, and hopefully help others to possibly retrieve their bike.

So, if you have a bike that was stolen and want to add it to the map, or just want to check it out see the Bay Area Stolen Bike Database (http://agenoese.000space.com/sfbikemap.htm)

Thanks!

Is this a serious project with input from law enforcement agencies and insurance companies?

Hahaha, wait, the SFPD actually cares about stolen bikes?!?

No, this is just a side project for him to help get the word out about stolen bikes, hopefully making their recovery easier. Also, with enough data points you could look at the map and figure out where NOT to park your bike.....

Unless you coordinate with law enforcement and the insurance companies, I doubt you will get enough data points to make this useful.

The hope was that through craigslist, forums, blogs, and word of mouth it will be sufficient for the cycling community.

Have you known law enforcement to coordinate with private individuals for this kind of purpose? If their data is available I am sure my friend would love to use it. I suspect that most people don't even bother reporting a stolen bike to the police, and high insurance deductibles usually make reporting to insurance a waste of time as well. What do i know though....

Police do keep a database of serial numbers etc. of stolen property reported by victims of theft/robbery. Not sure if there is a serial number on all bike frames in general, but you can contact your local police department and inquire about getting a special marker I believe to engrave usually your drivers license number on whatever property you own. That way if it does get found, it can be easily identified and returned. So it's always a good idea to take a lot of pictures of your bike, write down the serial number, mark it if necessary or even more for good measure, and of course, never leave it any where where it's vulnerable to theft. I don't think garages are even safe if you got a really nice bike. Even if you got a remote / electric garage, sophisticated thieves have specialized gadgets that can capture pretty much any kind of transmitted signal. And it would only take a minute or two for a thief to open your garage, stick the bike in their truck, and leave. So if you got a nice carbon bike you paid 2k for, the thief just made 2k for 2 minutes of time.

Updated Link
http://sfbikes.tk/