EAST LANSING – While summer is a time to enjoy the warmer
weather in Michigan, moped thefts often peak during these months.
Larry Sparkes, Lieutenant for the East Lansing Police Department in the Patrol Division, has been with the department since 1987.
“Within the last couple of weeks we’ve had some [thefts] and that is normal for this time of the year,” Sparkes said. “We do see an increase in moped thefts in the summer months.”
Alexander Wolf, the service manager for Campus-Scooter retailer and repair shop, recommends that owners are aware of their moped’s surroundings and that it is always locked up when not in use.
“It’s warmer out and students, and everybody that is riding, are more out and about and they are less likely to lock up their vehicle, so to speak, because everybody gets in a rush during the summer,” Wolf said.
Matt Macksood, a junior at Michigan State University, experienced first-hand his moped being stolen.
“[My moped] was tied up to my carport at my apartment complex and was stolen at night probably around 10 p.m.,” Macksood said. “I woke up and realized it was gone so I called the campus police and they came and filed a report.”
When a moped is stolen, if the police can retrieve the owner’s information containing the VIN (vehicle identification number) and their license plate number, the police can enter the information in the Law Enforcement Information Network. When the owner reports their moped as stolen, the information in the network changes. As a result, any police officer can scan a license plate to verify a moped belongs to its original owner.
“The problem is, if somebody doesn’t realize their vehicle has been stolen, and a week or 10 days goes by, the chances of finding that or recovering it are less than if they were to report it right away,” Sparkes said.
Sparkes said that the police department occasionally recovers stolen vehicles but could take them anywhere from a few days to several weeks for investigation.
Wolf said that recently a young woman retrieved her scooter after two years of it being stolen.
“But what happens is, people that are stealing these things are damaging them in the process of stealing them so when a person gets back their moped, it isn’t always in the same condition as when it was stolen,” Sparkes said.
Macksood said his moped was found on the south side of Lansing shortly after he filed his report.
“My moped, thank God, was returned to me within a few days,” Macksood said. “It had some damages to it: cut wires, broken front plate and banged up.”
Macksood secured his moped with a bike chain and lock, but the perpetrators cut the chain to steal it. Now he secures it directly to a pole with a lock and no chain.
At Campus-Scooter, Wolf recommends to the owners of mopeds to lock up their rear tire with a cable lock. The shop also offers a GPS tagging system that can be installed and hidden on the moped and synced to the user’s smartphone so in the case that the moped is ever stolen, the owner can notify the police to pick it up.
“[Owners] need to be making sure it’s locked and make sure they don’t leave a key with it,” Sparkes said. “Leave it in an area that is well-visible and well-traveled and check on it periodically.”
