Tag your bike: Some advice for students

The other day, one of my students said My bike was locked by my dorm. Now it’s gone. What I should I do? I said something semi-helpful like, Contact Campus Safety [1]. It does have a tag, doesn’t it? They just looked at me blankly.

So I talked to my kids. They said something like Tags? You can get bike tags? I never had a tag on my bike. I don’t think any of my friends have tags on their bikes.

So, here’s a public service announcement [2].

Campus security has bike tags available. They make it easier to recover your bike if it was stolen or lost. Get one!

Oh, and just so you know, the Student Handbook [3] says that you must register your bike with Safety (or with Bikes To You or with the police).

What happened to my student? They filed a report with Safety. They filed a report with the Police. While they didn’t have a tag on the bike, Bikes To You did have the serial number. Fingers crossed [4]!

A student reader reminded me that even with a tag, they are unlikely to be able to recover your bike. However, tags do help with the all-too-common situation of someone deciding to borrow your bike to get somewhere else on campus or in town.

[1] Campus Safety is the office formerly known as Campus Safety and Security and before that as Security. The hope is that by renaming, we make it seem less intimidating to those who have had less-than-positive experiences with the police.

[2] And it’s not my traditional Friday PSA.

[3] Warning! Links change on the Student Handbook. This one may eventually stop working.

[4] For those of you not familiar with the jargon, Fingers Crossed means that you hope that something will happen. In this case, we hope that the bike magically shows up.

Version 1.1 of 2017-09-07.

Version 1.0 posted 2017-09-06.