The City of Boston unveiled a new program designed to help people retrieve their stolen bikes using, among other things, social networking platforms Twitter and Facebook.
As part of our initiative to make Boston a world-class bicycling city, the Stolen Bike Alert program makes reporting stolen bikes easier and increases the chances of finding your stolen bike by giving you a larger network of search parties.
The idea is that you can register your bike online and if it is stolen you then have the ability to report it as such. This will set off a series of alerts to the police, local bike shops, hospital and school security, and the program’s Facebook and Twitter followers. You can even report a “sighting” if you happen to see someone’s stolen ride – these updates are broadcast out again as well.
I wonder if it is too late for me to report my poor stolen bike? Probably.
I am not sure how much this will deter theft, or increase returns… heck, I also wonder if something like this will end up being monitored by the serial thieves, so they know when not to try to flip the stolen goods on Ebay or Craigslist. At any rate, it is nice to see the City make an effort to address this problem and it is encouraging to see them embrace technology to do so.
You can find more information, and register your bike, on their website here: http://stolenbikesboston.com
And here is our recent bike lock review in case you are looking to upgrade your defenses: OnGuard Bulldog Mini
[…] a few cars off the road. This is in keeping with Boston’s recent push to turn itself into a world class bicycling city, and once it is implemented it will be the nation’s largest urban bike sharing […]