Keep your bike stored on campus? Better have it registered.

Beginning Monday, Central Michigan University Police will be impounding bikes left on campus that are unregistered, unlocked, inoperable, are a safety hazard or are in an undesignated area.

CMU Police are going around campus this week, marking bikes that meet these requirements with orange tags. If the bike is not removed by Monday, it will be impounded and taken to police headquarters.

East Area Residence Halls Community Police Officer Mike Sienkiewicz said the department is cracking down on unregistered bikes to prevent theft.

“We get a lot bikes stolen every year. Since August, we’ve had about 70 bikes reported stolen,” he said. “We notice a lot bikes that are registered and locked are stolen the least, so we’re hoping that people will be locking and registering their bikes, and hopefully that will cut down on (theft).”

Sienkiewicz said the bikes that are not claimed within 90 days will be either thrown away or put up for auction.

To register a bike, riders can log onto the police Web site, police.cmich.edu, and enter the make, color, and serial number of the bicycle. A registration tag will then be mailed to the owner.

“(Sienkiewicz) had mentioned at another university, they had tagged the bikes to give owners fair warning,” said Grant Skomski, assistant director of Residence Life.

Sienkiewicz said Michigan State University did a cleanup similar to this one, and thought it would be a good idea to do here.

“I was a student down there and I thought we should do it,” he said. “All these ordinances have been in effect here. We just haven’t really used them completely.”

Sienkiewicz said the residence hall racks had been all be inspected, and the department would move onto racks by the academic halls later this week.

“It’s fair, it gives notice,” Skomski said. “It achieves something for the CMU Police.”

Sienkiewicz said the police are just cleaning up left bikes to improve the cleanliness of campus and have no monetary motivation in impounding bikes.

“We don’t want people’s bikes. We’re not looking to make money off of this,” he said. “It is a problem. It’s something you don’t really notice.”

news@cm-life.com

E-mail the author: David Veselenak