Police swamped with stolen bikes

Karratha police are being “inundated” with stolen bikes at a rate of four or five a day and are urging residents to better secure their vehicles.

Bike thefts in Karratha have increased steeply in the past month, from the numbers local police are finding going from the usual five a week to that many a day, and the station is struggling to keep up.

Officers believe most of the thefts are due to bikes not being properly secured and are also concerned few owners are reporting them as stolen or coming forward to identify them, creating a backlog.

Karratha police operations manager Sergeant Ivan Davies said they were seeing large numbers of stolen bikes, scooters and even motorbikes come though the station, some of which were brand new or expensive.

“We’re just getting inundated with three to four push-bikes a day getting handed in as found,” he said.

“People aren’t looking after them and other people are taking it as an opportunity.”

He said the current rate of thefts meant police were running out of room in their storage shed and had been forced to take two trailer loads of bikes to the tip as scrap metal.

Sgt Davies urged people to better secure their bikes by locking them up, storing them out of sight and recording their vehicle’s identification details including on the online National Bike Register.

Karratha police Senior Constable Steven Innerd said stolen bikes also had a flow-on effect of enabling people to commit more crimes by having a fast, light vehicle to evade police.

“We need the people of Karratha to get on board and start being a lot more security-conscious in terms of their bikes,” he said.

“They can be used to commit other offences, and if they can identify it ... then we’ve got a chance of getting them back to them.”

The National Bike Register website asks people to register information about their bikes on an online police database and be issued with an identifying sticker.

For more information, visit nationalbikeregister.com.au.