Just a reminder that if you live in Madison, you are legally required to register your bicycle with the City. And, every bicycle dealer in the City is required to register every bicycle that they sell to a Madison resident. The cost is $10.00 for 4 years, but every bike ever registered is still in that database. Not a well-known ordinance, almost no money for publicity, not a high priority for the Police or the City Attorney’s Office, but the ordinance is there none the less. Many bikes have been returned to their owners by the Police Property Room because they were registered.
So if you bought a bicycle from a bike shop in Madison and they didn’t offer to register your bike, the shop was in violation of city ordinance, and they did you a disservice. They could have charged you the $10.00, easily gotten all of the required info from you at the time of sale, and your serial number and contact information would now be in an easily searchable bicycle registration database. Just thought you would want to know, John Rider (Former City of Madison Bicycle Registration Coordinator) From: Bikies [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Harald Kliems Sent: Sunday, June 14, 2015 1:26 PM To: William Hauda; bikies-danenet.org Subject: Re: [Bikies] Stolen bikes There have recently been a couple of cases in Madison where a stolen bike was recovered from pawn shops, at least partly based on the recorded serial number. And then of course there were the 600 recovered bikes where the DA had to drop the case against the alleged thieves/fences because it was impossibly to prove that the bikes had indeed been stolen. Recorded serial numbers certainly would've helped with that http://www.wkow.com/story/29172015/2015/05/27/exclusive-police-seize-600-suspected-stolen-bikes-but-da-drops-case So no, a recorded serial number won't prevent your bike from being stolen nor from being sold on Craigslist or at a yard sale. But if the bike _is_ recovered, it'll provide you with an easy way to identify the bike and prove ownership. Btw, the Bike Fed has partnered with BikeIndex to facilitate the registration of your bikes in an online database: http://wisconsinbikefed.org/2015/03/18/bike-theft-ring-busted-and-we-launch-stolen-bike-registry/ Harald. On Sun, Jun 14, 2015 at 4:11 AM William Hauda <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > wrote: This bike theft and the urging by Madison PD to keep a record of serial numbers for identification again begs the question of how useful that actually is. There is no national database of bicycle serial numbers like there is of VINs for motor vehicles, so how can knowing the serial number of a stolen bike even be helpful? http://www.channel3000.com/news/2700-bike-stolen-from-garage-in-madison-neighborhood/33549346 _______________________________________________ Bikies mailing list [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> http://lists.danenet.org/listinfo.cgi/bikies-danenet.org
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