Practical Guide to Parking

In many places, motorcycle parking is completely free. Scooters and motorbikes can be left in parking bays, car parks and in odd corners where cars don’t fit. Obviously, you still can’t park on a double yellow line, or blocking a pavement, but if you had no common sense you wouldn’t be riding, would you?

In places where parking in general is in shorter supply, there may be restrictions. The busier the city, the more you need to think about where you stop. You can’t park on the pavement anywhere in London, for example.

Different councils have different policies, so to be on the safe side, check their website for local regulations. Some allow unrestricted parking in residents’ bays, but not on parking meters, for example. Others will only let you use the bays marked “Motorcycles Only”, or streets where anyone can park without restriction.

With more and more riders on the roads, a few councils are starting to charge for motorcycle parking, though it’s generally a fraction of what a car driver would pay.

So what if you roll into a new town and can’t see a motorcycle bay? Look around for other scooters and motorbikes. If three are parked in a residents’ bay you’re probably okay to do the same (check they’re not sporting residents permits though!).

Road signs or ticket machines may tell you whether motorcycles have to pay, but if free bike parking is the general policy, they may not bother. If in doubt, ask a traffic warden or a fellow rider what the local rules are.

There are some myths about motorcycle parking. You can’t get away with illegal parking by covering up your number plate, or if you manage to get both wheels off the ground at once, for example.

And, if you’re new to riding, here are some handy tips:

Try to park with your back wheel nearest the kerb. That way, if the road slopes steeply you can ride out with the engine instead of using muscle power to pull yourself out backwards.

If there’s a slope, think about which way your motorbike will lean when you get off it. On a side stand, it might lean over so far you could struggle to get a heavy bike back to vertical. Or it might not lean far enough, and tip over.

Watch out for soft tarmac on a sunny day. If it gets really hot, the stand could sink in while you’re gone, and you might come back to a leaning bike, or one that’s embedded in the road!

Don’t block the road more than you need to. This is not just considerate – if a big vehicle can’t quite fit past, it could knock your scooter or bike over.

Try to lock your back wheel to something that won’t easily move. Many motorcycle bays now have bars, or loops set into the road, that you can put a chain through. Or you could ask another rider if you can lock your chain to their chain, linking the two vehicles together and making them both harder to steal. Remember, though – lock to their chain, not to their bike! Unless you feel pretty sure they won’t want to leave until you do…