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The M25 (CC licensed image by Highways Agency:Flickr)M25 cyclist “scared himself silly,” say Surrey Police
Surrey Police say a cyclist who took a wrong turning and ended up on the M25 “scared himself silly.”
The man found himself riding his bike in a live lane of the busy motorway between junctions 7 and 8 last Saturday evening after mistakenly joining it from a slip road, reports Get Surrey.
The website says that once he realised his error, panic set in and he turned round to head back along the hard shoulder to where he had joined it.
Police then intercepted him and escorted him back to safety after dispensing some words of advice to the rider.
Lovely evening for a bike ride..... Just not on the #M25..... pic.twitter.com/6kP0moGUJs
— RPU - Surrey Police (@SurreyRoadCops) July 12, 2015
Besides international cyclists accidentally ending up on motorways both here and abroad while training for major competitions, everyday cyclists often manage to find their way there too.
Last year a 74-year-old woman was fined £50 for using the M25 as a "short cut," according to Surrey Police, while a man from Ghana found cycling on the same motorway in June was arrested after it emerged his visa had expired.
The same month, another rider found himself on the M25 after following GPS directions which led him onto the motorway.
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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15 comments
I did a long journey last weekend. On the way back with the miserable weather, I told the GPS to take me the quickest way.
That'd be the A27 near Arundel. Bloody frightening and I put up with it for a few miles before I headed for the hills (literally).
Never understand why there is this constant them against us - cyclists against motorists - position on this forum. It's not constructive. It's starting to bore me.
I imagine a pretty high proportion of us also drive a car.
The world isn't out to get us. I was nearly hit on a roundabout last week but I'm sure the guy didn't target me. In the same way as, 10 minutes earlier, I misjudged a right turn across an A road and nearly ended up as a bloody pile of carbon and flesh. People are human and make mistakes.
Plenty of cyclists ignore the rules of the road. So do many car drivers. Get over it just ride your bike and enjoy it FFS.
smug You're right, I do drive a car too. About once a month. /smug
N
Absolutely right. I see at least as much knob driving in my car as on my bike. It just has a bigger impact when cycling because 'nearly died there' affects you more than 'nearly had a prang there'
I regularly ride on fast dual carriageways like the A5 around cannock and I love to do so. Generally they are unobstructed with no one turning left etc Far better than IMHO than any minor road and especially in the suburbs.
I have found myself accidentally on A roads that have scared me shitless. A wrong turn onto roads that are legal to cycle on can be just as bad as turning onto a motorway, and illustrate how bad the cycle provision is on our roads.
As it happens I've just seen a sign at the start of a roadworks section on a US Freeway/Interstate that said "Bicyclists must stop at this point and phone for an escort vehicle".
Yes, my thoughts exactly.
Like lorries with enormous blind spots
Motorways are *safer* to cycle on than most national-speed-limit dual-carriageway A-roads, and many of the busier, national speed-limit 1-lane-each-way A roads.
The A1 in Northern Ireland is effectively at M1 motorway standard for a good chunk - i.e. it has a separate hard shoulder. Then there's a chunk that's at normal British dual-carriageway standard - just 2 lanes, no hard shoulder.
The bit that is effectively at motorway standard is quite pleasant to cycle on, as you have your own lane thanks to the hard shoulder. The other bit is absolutely terrifying (despite Irish drivers seeming to have fewer knobs amongst them than in Britain) - I got off it as quick as I could and took a slower, longer and lumpier route to Newry via the country lanes, but it was much more pleasant.
The media attention when cyclists go on a motorway, and the tut-tutting about safety, while cyclists are allowed and indeed sometimes *expected* to cycle on much *more dangerous* A-roads, is symptomatic of Britain's bizarre attitude to cycling safety (and indeed safety generally - the UK goes bonkers over H&S in some areas, while ignoring the ones that kill the most people, and getting all concerned about things that aren't safety issues).
I saw someone cycling on the M23 a few years back when I was driving back into London from Gatwick. The bloke was heading towards Gatwick and just about to cross the (very busy) slip road from the M25 to the M23. I was in the car myself and had no way to call the cops. I hope someone did. The rider looked Asian and his bike was loaded up with heavy bags. I did wonder if he was heading to Gatwick and going to leave the bike there.
I do see a few riders on the very busy stretch of the A2 near Bexley. It may be an A road but it's as busy as a motorway and a lot of the drivers there do not feel the need to stick to the 50mph speed limit, except when they're passing the speed cameras. While it may be legal to ride a bicycle along there, I think they're nuts as it's not remotely safe. There are some decent sections of road that people can use instead, which makes what they do doubly stupid if you ask me.
OldRidgeBack: Yeah slip roads can be "fun" to try get past - but that's more or less the same whether it's a motorway or A-road. Though, maybe an A-road is less likely to have the longer, faster slip roads.
The major issue for me though was the hard shoulder to cycle in, or the lack of it.
I was riding through Cobham one weekend a few month back, when another cyclist waved me down to ask for directions. He was some East European chap trying to find his way to Clacket Lane Services for a days work.
Well.... I'm not sure I was much help, given it's about 20 miles away, but when I explained that he must not use the M25, he said "yes, I know, the Police already told me that"
Still, 10/10 for work ethic!
It seems to me that if someone thought the hard shoulder of the M25 was a valid shortcut then there's something seriously wrong with the road infrastructure round where she lives! Mind you, wouldn't surprise me - far too many major roads and motorways were put in place in the 1960s/70s which cut the local roads up and isolated villages which had been neighbours for centuries beforehand...
The police photo looks like it was taken on the exit slip at J8 westbound (clockwise), about here: https://goo.gl/maps/W8wAa.
Not really sure how you can ride down the exit slip "accidentally" - there aren't motorway signs on the exit slips but there are "no entry" signs.
Meanwhile, near Derby:
https://goo.gl/maps/3e9oQ
https://goo.gl/maps/sLptm
Yeah, I'm not sure what the road designers were thinking there, either. Or maybe it's just a Sustrans route.