Kyle
Police in Victoria are endorsing a new QR based technology designed by an Australian startup called MyBikeRego.
The concept is rather simple. MyBikeRego gives users of their service, three very hard to remove QR code stickers to affix to their bicycles. For $30 per year the owners information is stored in the cloud. The bicycle owners name, phone number, address and even other important information like blood type and next of kin can be stored in the cloud.
Now, when someone finds a bike and has a QR code reader on their smartphone they can easily locate the bicycles owner. Also police departments can do the same thing. With the information like the blood type and next of kin, should a bike rider ever get in an accident emergency personnel can easily contact the riders next of kin.
Craig McDonald, a leading senior constable and crime prevention officer in the northwest region of Victoria met with MyBikeRego in 2011 and instantly started recommending the product:
“As Police if we find a bike they all look the same to us,” he says, which makes it hard to help those whose bikes have been stolen. Bicycles’ inherent portability doesn’t help matters, as many end up in areas distant from their owners where it is even harder for Police to return a bike.
More after the break
While he admits freely that the police department doesn’t have any special QR code reading apparatus he knows that many officers have smartphones with QR code readers on them. He’s also certain that the department will purchase QR code readers for their property rooms to help return the bikes that stock up in property rooms to the rightful owner. Police auctions everywhere in the world always have a ton of bikes for sale because people lose their bikes or have them stolen, move and forget about them.
McDonald suggests that when people first see the QR codes they think it’s just a sticker however once the stickers applied you need to either grind it off or burn it off. It’s like those little metal stickers we used to get on our Schwinn’s back in the day.
MyBikeRego was founded by CEO Jacques de Villiers when he had a near miss incident on his bike. He actually developed the technology to assist riders in accidents. In Australia there are actually more bicycles sold the cars. The MyBikeRego website also points out that there are 9000 bike related injuries per year and around 35 fatalities.
While MyBikeRego definitely has a place in bringing owners to their bicycles it’s also instrumental in case of accidents.
Their website doesn’t say whether or not you can join from the US however it appears that as long as you’re ok with the Australian prices you may be able to join after all they have a growing customer base in the UK.
In addition to all the benefits described above MyBikeRego offers some other benefits as well. Like, for instance they have their own bike scanning app. If you are a paying member of the service and your bike is stolen your information is shared via mybikerego’s social networking channel and then anyone who has downloaded the mybikerego scanner can use their phone to scan bikes they believe may be yours.
Also they have a lifetime plan available for AU$165 so you don’t have to worry about paying an annual payment. It’s actually a great idea and it appears they are working closely with some Australian bike insurance companies. Check out Mybikerego here online.
source: TheRegister (UK)
