Good source of free padlocks

[Oaklandishh]

or you have some really sloppy campus police officers there...

I don't think you understand the number of bikes stolen from my campus. It's the kind of thing you have to experience to understand. My bike was stolen my roommate has had his bike stole twice, the girl next door has had her bike stole. It's more work then the campus police can handle. They already have drunk college kids to take care of.

[unlisted]

Ok, since you don't want to listen to sound advice, go break/pick some locks from the bike rack- just post here your school name, and give us 30 minutes advance warning.

Better someone from here calling the local PD to tell them what your up to, than some naive young woman from her dorm window watching this "guy messing with the locks on the bike rack- I think he is trying to steal a bike..."

Or worse yet, a "jock" male student with some friends recently had his bike stolen, and he just "happens" to come across you in mid picking of a lock.. he is very angry, drunk and does not want to listen to reason.. he simply wants to hear how much noise you make each time him and his friends use you as a punching bag. Oh and good luck talking your way outta this scenario.

Do you see where this could very will end up, if you do not have prior permission to pick? Simply ask for permission.

Your at a post secondary education facility.. in all reality a stolen bike is a very petty crime compared to what they normally deal with. Thats why it seems as if "nothing is being done" about the issues. If you are that interested/eager in the whole "theft prevention" end of the bikes (which you seem to be, since you keep talking about it) why not talk to one of the senior Police on campus, and "create" a student body that will review the CCTV footage when one is stolen? (and reported) Oh, and use that "job" as a excuse to collect the old locks, wait the standard "rules of evidence" time, and if the owner does not pick up the lock (which most won't- its broken, or the bike is gone..)well... there you go.

My thoughts on this matter at this current time.

[Schuyler]

I think he's saying that he is not picking whatsoever. He's picking up destroyed locks from the grass. Also - Davis has one of the highest bicycle populations in the country. When I was there 6 years ago the girl I was staying with said that sometimes bikes would get stolen, then found again on the other side of campus. Someone just ganked it to get to where they were going.

[Evan]

or you have some really sloppy campus police officers there...

I don't think you understand the number of bikes stolen from my campus. It's the kind of thing you have to experience to understand. My bike was stolen my roommate has had his bike stole twice, the girl next door has had her bike stole. It's more work then the campus police can handle. They already have drunk college kids to take care of.

I do understand... It is about the same on every campus that widely uses bicycles... MIT and Harvard in Cambridge, Massachusetts are plagued with the same issues, to the point that it got so bad outside of some of their dorms Harvard university built a lovely wrought iron fence around many of their newer dorms and getting past the gates now requires swiping a valid University ID card... That cut way back on the bicycles being stolen from the bike racks outside the dorms, but there are still issues with them being stolen around the academic buildings...

If you perceive this issue as being a very large thing (which in reality it isn't as big as you think) then do some research... You can either directly approach the Campus Police department and ask them how many bicycles are reported stolen on campus each year, or bring your issue to the student government system on your campus and have them make the inquiry in your place... Having the issue brought up within the context of a student governance issue would allow for some open questioning of how the university police deal with such issues and would allow for the student government to propose some new ideas on how to deal with the situation...

If you looked into it you would discover a pattern... The bicycles stolen were locked with cheaper locks that were easily cut by bolt cutters, or used weak chains... Or, "I was only going in for a minute and I didn't lock it up."

As to my comment which you quoted: Yes, you have some sloppy Campus Police officers if after receiving a report of a stolen bicycle they do not investigate the immediate area where it was reportedly last secured and collected the remnants of any locks they found in that area... That would be evidence -- something which could be examined for either fingerprints or tool marks... Knowing how many different pairs of bolt cutters are cutting the locks would help them learn how many people on their campus are actively engaging bicycle theft... Which is why I told you that you were either discovering these cut locks BEFORE the bicycles in question were discovered missing by their owner OR your campus police are sloppy...

As to what unlisted said, yes, bicycle theft is a very petty issue on the scale of what Campus Police departments have to deal with... More serious issues which can occur very frequently on a large campus are: rape, sexual assault, mugging, burglary (both from academic and residential buildings), motor vehicle theft... I suggest that you look up your campuses' Cleary Act statistics which are required by law to be public information... Campus Police have a lot more to do than deal with the drunken foolishness that the average college student observes them dealing with...

~~ Evan

[Oaklandishh]

I honestly appreciate your guys concern, but I just get the feeling that this thread will never be resolved. I guess what should be taken from this is be careful and know the possible dangers of the things you choose to do.

[JasonAller]

UC Davis has an Abandoned Bike Program. It might be possible to contact Transportation and Parking Services (TAPS) who runs it and see what they do with the locks that they cut when they empty bike racks of abandoned bikes.

In general after a quarter is over they will go to a few racks on campus and put notices on all the bikes. If the notices aren't removed from the bikes in a period of time (the policy says 48 hours, but I'm pretty sure they give a much longer period of time) then they cut the locks and the bikes to to the bike auction.

I think they generally pay more attention to the racks closer to the Memorial Union and Silo as I've seen bikes that were long abandoned in less traveled areas of campus that were left there for years.

[pyro78]

You guys have given me some good ideas. Though the college i attend doesn't have much of a bike theft problem because bikes are not widely used here, but i know that they are always clipping someones lock off either for them or because it has been left, say attached to a fence for example and they have to remove it to make the place look nicer. So here in the next few days i am going to talk to security to find out if there is a way i can obtain some if not all of the cut locks that they cut off for a while.

If anyone is looking for some of the cheaper locks though, asking friends who are leaving to college or use to ride a bike but don't anymore, or just the guy next door that you know quite well, they all seem to have old locks that they have laying around that they just never have had much of a use for but didn't throw them out thinking that they would have purpose someday. I went to a friend of mine and asked if his family had any old locks (they have all played sports when in high school and rode bikes non-stop before they all left for college), when he comes back for a holiday he is going to search for the old ones and toss them to me. So it just goes to show that everyone around you has locks without a purpose so just ask around.

[pin_pusher]

working for a college has helped substantially as well...i made close friends with the locksmith and have been given some really nice cores of various security levels, but the amount of locks cut/lost/thrown away at schools is rather unbelievable...

[Evan]

working for a college has helped substantially as well...i made close friends with the locksmith and have been given some really nice cores of various security levels, but the amount of locks cut/lost/thrown away at schools is rather unbelievable...

Yup... Anything left locked with a non-institutionally provided lock (which they supplied and have the key for) gets removed during the summer in preparation for the new academic year in the fall...

Athletic facility lockers, academic building lockers -- it can add up to thousands of locks in an academic year on a large campus...

~~ Evan

[pyro78]

working for a college has helped substantially as well...i made close friends with the locksmith and have been given some really nice cores of various security levels, but the amount of locks cut/lost/thrown away at schools is rather unbelievable...

Yup... Anything left locked with a non-institutionally provided lock (which they supplied and have the key for) gets removed during the summer in preparation for the new academic year in the fall...

Athletic facility lockers, academic building lockers -- it can add up to thousands of locks in an academic year on a large campus...

~~ Evan

just need to locate a security guard now that wants to let me snag a few, i asked the question of so what do you do with the locks you cut, to which they replied we throw them away, i then asked if there was a way i could obtain some of the locks that they cut off before they throw them out. At that point i got a really weird look and was informed the shackle was cut and they are throwing them away, i was then dismissed..

also i have figured out one more way to get some free/cheap locks, that way is to find a building that is being remodeled near by (as in a full remodel, not just one room) and ask them if they are changing out the locks for new ones, if they are they are normally going to just throw away the old locks and might be inclined to give you them for free or for a bribe of a little money. Either way its cheaper than buying new locks.