Great news: the SF Police Department’s Crime Analyst Office indicates that reported bike thefts were down 8.5% last year from 2013 numbers (747 bikes were reported stolen in 2014, down from 817 in 2013). Meanwhile San Francisco’s free bike registration program, SAFE Bikes, has helped get over 100 bikes returned to their rightful owners in its first year.
Bicycle theft is an issue in our city, but luckily we have a ton of great resources on our website for learning how to best secure your bike. We’re working with SAFE Bikes as part of our ongoing efforts on bike theft, and we hope you’ll join the more than 7,000 others in San Francisco who have registered their bikes. Officers are now better trained on recovering bikes and how to locate their owners.
Here is a checklist for how to properly secure your bike, or you can watch the video below:
- Get a hardened steel U-lock. You don’t want to skimp on the lock; cheap locks are easy to cut.
- Replace your quick releases on your wheels and seat post with a set of locking skewers. Anything easy to remove is a target for theft.
- Find a secure rack or pole to lock your bike to, nothing that can be easily ripped out of the ground.
- Attach the hardened steel U-lock to the rack through the rear triangle of your bike and the rim of the rear wheel. DON’T just lock the bike through your wheel.
- For added security, attached a secondary lock through your front wheel.
- Register your bike with safebikes.org. It’s free and helps police get your bike back to you if it’s ever reported stolen.
For more information on how to safely secure your bike, visit sfbike.org/theft.
