Quote Originally Posted by ZMC888 View Post
I don't know much about Shanghai, but with Beijing the out-of-town cars have to stop by an office on the intersection of some various ring-roads and Expressways and buy a windscreen sticker allowing that vehicle to drive in Beijing or get some huge fine or other. Obviously being illogical car obsessed automatons there would be no similar facility for motorcycles.
This used to be the case in SH also. When I was undertaking my MBA in SH (through most of 2009), driving up most weekends over the period of that year, at the SH boundary with Zhejiang province, one not only paid for the Expressway 'toll' but also a special label that allowed the 'car' to be driven on SH roads - and I believe covered some form of insurance. I seem to recall the fee was an additional 50kuai. I still have one of those labels on my car windscreen (which had to be affixed to the top LHS) from 2009 I believe. It was one label allowing 24 hour access to some of SH roads (but not all). The same label had to be paid at any of the highway tollbooths heading into SH too so it was a little difficult to avoid (though there used to be one way to get round a highway toll back in the day if one could be bothered). Motorcycles though never had to pay this SH entry fee, which is why I attempted to ride my motorcycle from NB to SH as often as I was willing to put up with the 8 hour one way ride (three-four times as long as it took to drive the car on the Expressway).

I'm certain I drove to SH within the last year or two and remember being somewhat surprised that the label/fee were no longer required. I could be mistaken though. By the same token I have ridden to SH many many times since moving from SH (11 years ago) by motorcycle which had an out-of-town plate (NB, Zhejiang). Never once was I stopped/fined or had to explain myself to any SH authority, despite having ridden inside the restricted zone (People's Square, The Bund, Zhabei, Nanjing Dong Lu, Lui Jia Zui, et al. I think though I'd be able to show that I genuinely live outside SH, and would therefore be able to argue 'just visiting' with a high degree of confidence if I were/had been stopped by SH Traffic police.

Not saying such a defence would work, but I would argue the case.

I attempted a similar argument with the Traffic Police on the Zhejiang section of the G60 Expressway when I rode back from Thailand early March just gone, and was stopped/intercepted some 350km from home having already ridden some 3000+km on the Expressway from Xishuangbanna. I argued politely, I've a legal bike, legal plate, paid the exorbitant tax (~10K), insurance, have legal driver licence, and importantly if BJ national law does not forbid motorcycles from using Expressway, does it mean that Zhejiang by-laws trump the BJ national law. Or as I put it another way, is Zhejiang province not part of mainland China. Not to say it worked, though the Police did call the head of the Police to try and get a special clearance to allow me to continue - but failed. The Police tried to persuade me that the Expressway was a dangerous place to ride, and that a motorcycle would be safer ridden on the normal roads/highways... if it wasn't so sad such a statement would be laughable. Ironically as I rode several kilometres from where I'd exited the G60, I was almost T-boned by a vehicle that proceeded from a small side road driven by a clueless driver, who, as is customary round TIC failed to observe driving basics/fundamentals to look left and right. As I chant over and over, TIC the LFZ.

In recent years there are so many vehicles inside SH adorned with out-of-town plates (despite SH government policies to curtail such practice), that out of town plated vehicles are able to have inspections completed in SH without the need to return to the city/province from which the plate is from, to undertake said inspection. I don't believe this to be extended to out-of-town plated motorcycles/mopeds though.