A man in his seventies has been rescued by police after straying on to the M42 on his bike yesterday afternoon.

Drivers called 999 (hands-free, we hope) to alert emergency services to the unnamed pensioner who was riding south on the motorway yesterday afternoon at about 3.30pm, reports the Birmingham Mail’s Brett Gibbons.

The man had ridden on to the motorway at junction 5 and was heading for junction 6 and the National Exhibition Centre before he was stopped by police.

A spokeswoman for West Midlands Police said: “We managed to get to him quickly. He had realised what he had done as soon as he had got onto the motorway. It was a mistake and luckily he was not hurt.”

Unlike previous incidents on the M25 and M3 in Surrey, and on the towering M60 Barton Bridge in Manchester, no fruit-branded satellite navigation app seems to have been involved this time.

 

 

The rider is reported to have been none the worse for the experience.