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The M25 (CC licensed image by Highways Agency:Flickr)Woman, 74, fined for using M25 as bike ride “short cut”
Police in Surrey have fined a 74-year-old woman £50 for cycling on the hard shoulder of the M25 motorway.
The woman, from New Haw near Weybridge, was apparently using what is one of Britain’s busiest stretches of road as a shortcut, according to a tweet from Surrey Roads Police.
She was stopped on Wednesday afternoon between junctions 10 and 11.
@SurreyRoadCops She was transported off the motorway and issued with a fixed penalty notice of £50
— Surrey Roads Police (@SurreyRoadCops) August 6, 2014
Cyclists take to the M25 with alarming regularity, with a number of instances of bike riders being spotted on the motorway flagged up by Getsurrey.co.uk.
According to the website, a cyclist from Ghana was arrested in June after police caught him cycling on the hard shoulder in Surrey and discovered that his visa had expired.
In May, a cyclist was seen by a driver riding the wrong way on the motorway, while in February a rider was caught by CCTV footage as he made his way across the slip road onto the hard shoulder.
The same month, another cyclist was found on the motorway after following instructions from his GPS unit as he sought to find a quicker way home from work.
Elsewhere, just a fortnight ago cyclists from the Sri Lanka national team who were in Glasgow for the Commonwealth Games were discovered riding on the hard shoulder of the M74 while on a training ride.
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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34 comments
'Cyclists take to the M25 with alarming regularity'
Do you mean frequency? Alarming regularity would suggest incredibly precise intervals. Like Hailey's comet. Not necessarily frequent.
*Pedant mode off*
Of course motorways have an incredibly good cyclist safety record. So do railways. No one cycles on them. [Please do not tell me about when you did cycle along the M1 or the WCML.]
We frequently cycle on motorways here in the UAE. Great big 12 lane motorways with most cars doing 120-140km/h and lots of heavy traffic.
It's not really a problem if you're just cycling on the hard shoulder. I don't know what everyone is getting upset about.
In fact I'd say it is safer than most urban riding because you are not having to interact with the cars - they don't have to move around you, slow down for you or do anything that involves a driver making a decision in favour of a cyclist.
Glasgow-Edinburgh via Bathgate - that line takes a *lot* longer to get to Glasgow though. Particularly approaching Glasgow, it takes a very meandering route with lots of stops. Was very annoyed the time I accidentally took that line instead of via Falkirk!
74 and still probably more rad on her bike than most of the boring sods whinging about her.
I'm pretty appalled that no-one has seen fit to mention this fucking idiot could've caused death and destruction on the motorway...in the name of a short cut ? A £50 fine is an insult.
Why? Is it really a major problem? How many deaths every year are caused by people cycling on the hard shoulder of motorways? Its not that often that people make such an error (usually it seems to be foreign sports teams!).
I suspect its not as many as those caused by people driving on pavements (and on cycle paths), and does that always receive a huge penalty in the absence of death or injury? Usually that goes entirely unpunished.
Seems to me this such a minor problem in general that its not worth getting worked up over demanding harsher penalties. The vast majority of cyclists have more sense because it already carries a potentially fatal penalty. If it suddenly became a common occurrence then maybe you could argue the penalty needs to be increased.
Plus, of course (as others have already pointed out ) lots of major roads where cycling is allowed are actually less safe for cycling than motorways are.
The original tweet doesn't say whether the offenders' intended destination was earthly or whether she had a more celestial terminus in mind...
Stephen - it was a good point. As was your one about using J10-11 to get to New Haw being insane. I wouldn't even drive that way. Depending if she was coming north or south on the A3 (which you couldn't pay me to do in either direction on a bike). There used to be a track called Muddy Lane from Wisley on the South side that went to Byfleet under the M25 but some busybody got it closed.
You can still walk along Muddy Lane and probably cycle, it is a bit narrow when you go under the M25 bridge though.
Mrs Freespirit and I walked through there about a year or so ago.
Er, anyone suggesting that a bike lane next to the motorway is a good idea, well I work in the roadside breakdown industry. In a single year 5 breakdown technicians have been killed while working on the hard shoulder - which is why there's now a strict code for roadside working (PAS 43) . The chances of some idiot either drifting into or overtaking in the hard shoulder are quite high. This is why all advice is that if you do break down on the motorway, get the hell out of the car and behind the crash barrier straight away.
Sorry - that was po-faced and boring.
The accident statistics show that riding a bike on a motorway is actually the safest place to ride.
Nice of all the cars to toot when they see you too, it suggests they have actually seen you..
All road users need to abide by the Highway Code and associated rules and regulations. There is no excuse for cycling on the motorway.
Rather than berate the councils there should be better training and knowledge by the road user who is ultimately responsible.. It should be a legal requirement to read the Highway Code every year or so. How many of you have read it since taking a driving test?
Cars might be more reliable but tyres still puncture - as happened to me last week on the M74. So glad I didn't have to go 500 metres to stop as my quick stop saved the wheel from damage.
I have cycled on the M6 in an emergency but that was back when mobile phones were rare.
Incidentally the old M10 in Hertfordshire still has its hard shoulder making it probably the widest cycle lane on any public road. Even the emergency phones are still there (I should check sometime whether or not they work).
I have frequently been beeped by drivers on the A27 just after the finish of the M27 because they think I'm on the motorway.
There does need to be better signposting of alternative routes for cyclists. Try cycling up the A1 to South Mimms and find your way to St Albans without ending up on a motorway.
Yeah me too. I find it worrying that some drivers obviously don't know if they are on a motorway or not.
I bet a 74-year-old woman on a bike was going faster than most of the cars on the M25
Yeah, riding a bicycle on a 70 mph multi-lane road, on the hard-shoulder that's guaranteed to be there, is dangerous.
Cyclists should stick to the much safer 70 mph dual-carriageways without hard-shoulders, and the 60 mph single-lane roads.
UK road/cycling safety logic at its finest.
Well true enough. So what are you saying? They should allow cyclists on to motorways (I presume along with milk floats, mopeds, tractors etc) or alternatively ban us cyclists from A roads. And what do you think is more likely?
@fancynancy: Yes, particularly where the motorway is actually the only way to get somewhere. Two examples that spring to mind: the M50 crossing of the River Severn here, and the M180 crossing of the River Trent here.
In both cases, converting one hard shoulder into a properly protected cycle lane would save cyclists a long round-trip. Hard shoulders are less essential than they used to be because cars are so much more reliable - hence why the Highways Agency is converting them to traffic lanes all over the place.
The cycle path beside the M5 over the Bristol Avon works well enough - let's have more of them.
Why they dont build cycle routes down the sides of motor ways & railways is beyond me. Such a simple solution.
In Germany (and yes, in the Netherlands too, sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry) they usually have (largely unused) roads along the rail tracks, likely intended for service vehicles but perfect for walking and cycling. It's a mystery to me why they don't have that here. Would be brilliant for my commute, I could avoid so many cars that way.
Oh, doubly especially railways. They go from town centre to town centre, and they are traffic-free and flat. How I wish it too... And canals too (and by that I mean real proper tarmac).
A cycle facility next to a motorway is not necessarily the same thing as a bike lane on the hard shoulder. Building motorways costs squillions of quid. Adding a proper, wide, tarmac cycle road (or cycle access to a dedicated service road alongside, via a 150cm gap on a lockable barrier etc) would not add much dosh to the bottom line, and that applies to major non-motorway highways too.
Completely agree. They just finished doubling the rail line Between Bathgate and Edinburgh Last year, why they never thought about building a cycle track along side it at the same time is beyond me. They built a cycle track along side the Bathgate to Airdrie part but not into the Capital. Wasted opportunity.
The reopened railway was made possible because the wayleave was preserved almost entirely intact by the construction of a cycle route, on which I was the engineer. There were conditions built in to the deal for returning the route to a railway.
One was that the continuity of the cycle route would be maintained during the construction work - it was not.
Another was that a cycle route to replace that displaced by the railway reopening would open contemporous with the reopening of the rail link. On my last visit the links at Bathgate and Plains were either miserably circuitous or incomplete - notably at Plains you needed to use the A89 between Plains and Drumgelloch.
On the plus side there is still very little demand to travel between Blackridge and Caldercruix - I was often the only passenger on the hourly bus with my bike when the path was being built. Thus the Glasgow to Edinburgh trains via Bathgate double the frequency of service but are generally less busy than the trains via Falkirk High - a detail which people had to be reminded of during Glasgow 2014 - and if you are travelling from Partick and beyond its actually faster to stay on the train through to or from Edinburgh.
Enforce all traffic laws. Exactly.
I have the unofficial honour of being the first cyclist on the M25.
When they were building the section between Waltham Abbey and Potters Bar back around 1983/4, I snuck on there one weekend and rode up and down it for several hours between junctions 24 and 26.
Someone once told me they used to race on the M25 while it was still being constructed? Can't find anything to confirm it, but did stumble across this http://rarebooks.scarthinbooks.com/m25cycle.shtml
Yes, this is true. I have seen photos and spoken to people who raced on it. Apparently it was really dull.
Back to the original story, if she came on at J10 that implies she was riding on the 3 lane section of the A3 - which is not far different from the M25 anyway. That's by the by - riding to J11 is definitely not the best (or shortest) way to get to New Haw.
An amazing achievement for that guy, and their suggestion for a race around it would be great!
so rather than building decent infrastructure to help non-car people get around they just ignore them and even better, get 50 quid by fining them.
Well this might not be popular but... I think the police should enforce traffic laws more rigorously. I consistently stick to this position. Riding your bike on the motorway is dangerous. And the cyclist is not the only person in danger.
I want the traffic laws to be enforced because as a vulnerable road user that's in my best interest. I'd be a hypocrite if I thought some road users should be exempt from enforcement just because they used the same means of transport as I did.
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