A Motorcycle Theft Survey, conducted by top bike insurance specialist Carole Nash, has estimated that bikers living in the North West London (NW) area are at the greatest risk when it comes to theft.

Having surveyed 117 main UK postcodes, those in Greater London feature in eight of the top ten highest risk areas, with car-insurance-crackdown-nets-thousands.aspx" title="Liverpool">Liverpool (unsurprisingly to popular stereotypical opinion) ranking amongst the worst areas outside of the capital. A biker living in Liverpool’s L postcode is more than twice as likely to have their motorcycle stolen than the average rider, while bikers living in North West London are over five times more likely to have their bike stolen. The results come after insurer Carole Nash analysed claims from its 230,000 bike insurance policyholders in order to pinpoint the nation’s theft hotspots, so as to raise bikers’ awareness of their vulnerability when it comes to crime.

Northern Ireland was the lowest ranked region, with bikers in areas such as Galashiels (TD), Perth (PH), Llandrindod Wells (LD), the Isle of Man (IM) and Dumfries & Galloway (DG) also being low risk. Hereford was also deemed safe for bikers as their position on the risk scale dropped by 64 places, while Preston’s PR postcode soared up the list by the same number of places, which is bad news for the bikers who will see their motorcycle insurance premiums rise just as high.

Despite insurers attempting to highlight the increasing theft risk for London bikers, there is still a significant shortage of secure motorcycle parking places in the capital and across the rest of the UK. Carole Nash’s operations director, Dave Bowcock feels it’s time that the authorities addressed this situation rather than blithely spouting anti-motorcycle rhetoric in a bid to erase the problem altogether as opposed to actually dealing with it. Furthermore, Bowcock argues that the authorities are demonising the biking community by reporting on incorrect figures of the number of untaxed motorcycles. Rather than continually focusing on the potential dangers of riding a motorcycle, it would be more productive to highlight the positive aspect of biking, which is free from the congestion charge as well as being a far more environmentally-friendly alternative to driving a car or van, or indeed any larger gas-guzzling vehicle.

It is also important that bikers themselves make a concerted effort to protect their machines. Although most models come with integrated security features as standard, many still require additional devices in order to secure the investment of the bike, such as ground anchors, heavy duty chains and microdot tagging systems. Moreover, adding and using security features to a motorcycle could lead to notable reductions in motorbike insurance premiums, as well as reducing the hassle and inconvenience that theft or vandalism inevitably causes.

Almost six times as many motorcycle insurance claims were made for stolen scooters and mopeds as they were for the lowest risk category, the tourer. Interestingly, the survey also found that for the second year running, the pick of motorcycle theives was Honda’s SCV100 Lead scooter.