My family has had three bikes stolen at two different times from Pacific Palisades. Once the driveway gate was open and someone walked up to the garage and took two bikes. The second time, a bike was parked along the house, behind a fence, and taken. Both times we filed a police report.
Driving past a homeless camp in Venice, I noticed that one person had about 10 different bikes and parts of bikes by their tent. I’m not saying they were stolen, but that seems to be a lot of bikes for one person.
A tip came through the Pacific Palisades Community Council that bikes can be registered through Bike Index, a nonprofit bike registry (https://bikeindex.org/news).
At the site, there’s this question: “1,000’s of Bikes Are Being Stolen During the Pandemic. What Can You Do?” A June 19 post notes, “Most people who ride a bike will have their bike stolen at some point. It’s just the cruel fact of our reality. If — but hopefully not when — this happens to you, what is your recourse? Bike registration is the only real agency someone has to claim ownership and get their bike back if it’s stolen.”
If LAPD recovers a bike, they can trace it through this registry.
1) The site claims to have more than 7,000 stolen bicycle recoveries to its name and the recovery rate is 10 percent.
2) Bike Index is connected to police and pawn industry databases.
3) Bike Index has free, geo-targeted social media tools.
4) The nonprofit’s goal is not to make money, but to register bikes. The Bike Index is free, and it does not matter how many bikes you register. The nonprofit writes: “The results are in: we’re registering and recovering more bikes every year. If you want to protect your gravel bike, look no further than Bike Index.”