FBinNY 

Dumbest idea ever? --- you're giving folks too much credit.

OTOH, maybe they can consider how good dog registration is working. Bike registration was SOP in cities all over the country for decades until just about all of them discontinued it because it simply wasn't worth the bother.

fietsbob

harder to traffic stolen property interstate on an Island in the middle of an Ocean..

GhostSS

That doesn't stop people from stealing. Trust me, theft here is high.

Living on a rock really only affects violent crime because there's no where to run.

Jax Rhapsody

I dont like the idea of putting a cost of what is claimed to be cheap transportation- regardless of sale price.

Artkansas 

Once, when a bike was stolen, the police were able to return it because it was registered. Registering bikes seems to have fallen out of favor.

The police probably make more money if they can't trace stolen bikes and they can auction them off, not to mention the administration costs of tracking that data.

Fastfingaz

,,,,,,,,, Funny you should comment on the police and stolen bicycles , just the other day I read an articale in local newspaper with pictures of a 18 wheeler loading up all the bikes the police had by one way or the other and sending them to Angola state penitentury so the inmates could fix them, paint them and were to be given out to needy or otherwise under privliged kids , I thought that was excellent ?

Vintage_Cyclist

The only registration that makes sense would be a free, voluntary registration, where bikes can be listed in an official database (i.e., brand, model, serial#, owner info), so that recovered lost/stolen bikes can be reunited with owners. All this would need is a simple database to input the information into and would not really require any extra resources to manage.

Coal Buster

That's no different than reporting the serial number along with the description when you report your bike stolen. The thing about involuntary registration is that the thief could never get a new registration for the stolen bike and all bikes must be registered. Thieves will always find a buyer anyway. They'll just use the parts and dump the frame.

dedhed

Around here it's free. Pick up the sticker, fill out the stuff on line done. I think it's mostly to help police find the owner on the slim chance a stolen bike is actually recovered.

Bicycle License Application Main Page.

Vintage_Cyclist

Big difference.

A centralized database, that can be utilized to identify recovered bikes, and is available across multiple police jurisdictions, would provide a resource that can be searched when a bike is actually recovered. Additionally, bikes known to be stolen, whether or not already registered, should be put in the database with that as a flag as well. This could theoretically provide a resource for legitimate inquiries from buyers looking to ensure a bike isn't stolen.

A police report taken for a stolen bike will not necessarily provide the ability to connect a found bike to the owner, especially if it's only filed locally (which is probably the case in 99% of jurisdictions) and the bike is found in an adjacent jurisdiction.

If a bike is stolen and NOT recovered, it would be a moot point, since there is nothing available to return.

Cops end up with a lot of found bikes for various reasons, if they could search the serial# in a database, maybe some of them could be returned to owners.

To the point of the original post, requiring registrations just to collect fees (as well as monetary penalties from tickets for having an unregistered bike) would be a ridiculous government harassment of citizens and not in the public interest. But politicians always love to find new ways to pick our pockets!

practical

I don't really know how I feel about this. Part of me is the conspiracy theory about government control. The other part likes the idea of theft deterrent. And I also wonder how to raise money for bike infrastructure. What's a fair way for bikers to contribute to the costs of bike lanes, bike paths, etc.? Just wondering.

Dave Cutter

The cost of ID chips have plummeted to near nothing. The WiFi circuits are also cheap. Extremely long lasting batteries will "seal the deal" on implanting everything.... and EVERYONE.

Once we are ALL registered and tracked... along with our possessions. We will simply ask our iPhone who (what human ID chip) was last reported on the missing bicycle and where. Then forward an email with that information to the local police... and insurance provider.

Technology that reports the thief will end petty theft. Of course every solution produces new and unexpected problems.

Vintage_Cyclist

I would be willing to guess that the vast majority of adult bike riders pay taxes and drive cars (which have their own highway infrastructure taxes taken from registration fees and gas taxes); so I think they're already paying into the effort. If a dedicated way of taking money from cyclists is deemed necessary, I would think that a small tax on bike purchases would be the easiest way to do it. I would hate to see an effort to require any sort of annual registration fee like they do with cars.

The government already provides the public with many services and facilities without specially dedicated fees. Would anyone want to see entry fees for parks or ticket prices to let kids use a seesaw?

wahoonc

If they REALLY want cyclists to pay their way then they need to charge us by vehicle weight and then do the same with cars. My current truck registration costs me ~$180 a year for my truck with 10,000# tags on it (truck only weighs 7,500#). That works out to $.024 per # of actual weight, now my big city bike weighs ~50# that works out to $1.20 a year

Aaron

mrodgers

Sounds good to me. My car is 3900 lb. I pay $36. I don't know what my bike weighs, it should be less than 30 lb. So car is $0.009 by weight, I'll kick in my $0.27 per year for my bike if it gets us bike lanes on every single road in the state, which includes out in the middle of nowhere where I live.

I'm not wasting $0.27 though if it only benefits you guys in the city.