If you live and ride your bicycle in most any Valley city, you’ve probably registered your bike with the police department just in case it gets stolen. But the problem with the existing registries is that they operate as silos. Right now, cities and towns can’t communicate about bike thefts and recoveries. That, however, is about to change.
It’s called the BikeGuard Program and the Tempe Police Department and other law enforcement agencies have partnered with the Arizona Crime Prevention Association to roll out the new registry. Detective Jeff Lane is with Tempe PD. He says one difference between this program and the existing one is its scope.
"This program is not only a statewide but nationwide program," said Lane. "So if your bike happens to be stolen in Tempe and recovered in Mesa they can actually pull up the database and go, 'This bike belongs to me, Jeff Lane, and they can get it back to me.'"
BikeGuard is free to both users and law enforcement agencies. According to the ACPA, a bike is stolen every 7 seconds in the U.S.
