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M42 (CC licensed image by Highways Agency:Flickr)Elderly rider strays on to M42 near Birmingham with no help from satnav
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.
John has been writing about bikes and cycling for over 30 years since discovering that people were mug enough to pay him for it rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work.
He was heavily involved in the mountain bike boom of the late 1980s as a racer, team manager and race promoter, and that led to writing for Mountain Biking UK magazine shortly after its inception. He got the gig by phoning up the editor and telling him the magazine was rubbish and he could do better. Rather than telling him to get lost, MBUK editor Tym Manley called John’s bluff and the rest is history.
Since then he has worked on MTB Pro magazine and was editor of Maximum Mountain Bike and Australian Mountain Bike magazines, before switching to the web in 2000 to work for CyclingNews.com. Along with road.cc founder Tony Farrelly, John was on the launch team for BikeRadar.com and subsequently became editor in chief of Future Publishing’s group of cycling magazines and websites, including Cycling Plus, MBUK, What Mountain Bike and Procycling.
John has also written for Cyclist magazine, edited the BikeMagic website and was founding editor of TotalWomensCycling.com before handing over to someone far more representative of the site's main audience.
He joined road.cc in 2013. He lives in Cambridge where the lack of hills is more than made up for by the headwinds.
Latest Comments
- Hirsute 2 hours 7 min ago
Radar tells me their closing speed, if they are slowing and how far away. Then I decide to say a prayer. The change of light pattern is incidental.
- lonpfrb 2 hours 27 min ago
Quite so, which is why our village 20mph zone covers the whole residential extent. Of course, enforcement is another thing..
- lonpfrb 2 hours 53 min ago
No, that's very doubtful while proper testing would be fully destructive.
- TheBillder 3 hours 40 min ago
In that £1000 exactly scenario, beginners should probably be made aware that pedals will be extra.
- don simon fbpe 4 hours 7 min ago
What's wrong with dropping down on to the Millenium Bridge, or the swing bridge, then the brief, but satisfying climb back up the hill? #training....
- chrisonabike 4 hours 48 min ago
The relatives might of course disagree, but in general I'd countenance a relatively light sentence* if only we could fix it so that those who...
- ktache 5 hours 28 min ago
Id forgotten that I got a second hand set of project two's for my getting to work bike over twenty years back.
- Veganpotter 6 hours 25 min ago
My bet is that all these tires popping off are from people with bad pressure gauges or they're simply just putting too much air in on purpose. ...
- chrisonabike 7 hours 40 min ago
David9694 - you were right! These new autonomous vehicles really are conspiring to run out of control!...
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7 comments
stupid old fart, I really don't know how you can mistake a motorway for a regular road ...
Has there been a sudden drop in IQ, or are we just hearing about these incidents because they're little more topical at the moment?
It's getting to the situation where we need to have 'No Cycling' signs on motorway slip roads.
There are signs that say no cycling, at least on the original motorway slip roads in England. Not noticed the same signs on newer motorways though, certainly none where I use the A803 (which also happens to be slip road on to (and off of) M8) - all there is is an end of motorway sign (when it has not been demolished by a car) on the way to Charing Cross, next to the 30mph speed limit sign - which every driver clearly fails to see (when that is also still standing).
It is quite an enjoyable experience at around 5pm to cut through from Dobbies Loan to Newton Street, as I'm usually travelling much faster than the traffic on the M8, as I cycle past.
They are already in place!
http://www.menatwork.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Motorway-sign-8ft-...
Lucky but fairly stupid....I drive along there regularly & it's pretty obvious you're on the Motorway. If by some strange circumstance you were to find yourself there (perhaps in thick fog) you get off your bike and wheel it back up the slip road or over the fence into the nearest field ..... you certainly woudn't keep going !
Very lucky as at certain times of the day (rush hour and it starts at about 15:30 pm) cars are allowed to travel on the hard shoulder if they are exiting at the next junction. There are refuges and a variable speed limit to allow this in order to ease congestion.
Even with variable speed limits i hate to think what could have happened with lorries and a cyclist both using the hard shoulder!