Suicidal Cyclist spotted today

[Ming the Merciless]

I rode the O2 course from Blyth a few times in the 80's I can't remember thinking this is dangerous, but when I have driven that course since I thought I must have been mad.

Was the traffic a lot less in the 80's ?

Yes, traffic was a lot less in the 80’s. Less than half the volume.

 

[DRM]

Agree here. I regularly drive up the A1 and the non motorway sections are not designated as such for good reason. They are not motorways in any sense.

But it’s still national speed limit, dual carriageway, With a hard shoulder for the vast majority of it, unless a lower limit is in force, so it’s not an offence to drive at 70 mph, so who in there right mind would want to mix it with fast moving vehicles, especially where they will be accelerating up to speed to join the A1, might be legal, but dead is still dead!

 

[Ming the Merciless]

But it’s still national speed limit, dual carriageway, With a hard shoulder for the vast majority of it, unless a lower limit is in force, so it’s not an offence to drive at 70 mph, so who in there right mind would want to mix it with fast moving vehicles, especially where they will be accelerating up to speed to join the A1, might be legal, but dead is still dead!

But that would occur at 60 mph as well. So includes B roads and unclassified.

 

[Dwn]

But it’s still national speed limit, dual carriageway, With a hard shoulder for the vast majority of it, unless a lower limit is in force, so it’s not an offence to drive at 70 mph, so who in there right mind would want to mix it with fast moving vehicles, especially where they will be accelerating up to speed to join the A1, might be legal, but dead is still dead!

For about 9 months in the early 90's my commute was between home in Glasgow and the IBM factory in Greenock. The flattest route involved about 4 miles of the A8 immediately after it had been the M8. The biggest problem was that you had no option but to cycle right at the edge of the lane - anything else would have been literally fatal. And the edge of the lane was not a great place to be since much of the road debris ended up there.

Some A roads are fine to cycle but these quasi-motorways are not something I'd willingly do these days. The speed, volume of traffic and the sheer size of many of the lorries are a pretty big deterrent.

 

[Solocle]

Are you thinking of the same A1? I drive it regularly from the end of the A1(M) near Peterborough up to Doncaster. Lots of stretches with no hard shoulder. In fact, I'm struggling to think any bits with a hard shoulder but I'm sure there are some. Most slip roads are waaay shorter than motorway slip roads and there are loads of them, often with tight bends that unsight and slow down the joining traffic. It's incredibly un-motorway like. And to be fair, it doesn't spring to mind as a place where I see a lot of lunatic driving.

Not a place I'd go near on a bike. But also nothing like a motorway.

In fact I think I'd prefer to ride (illegaly) on hard shoulder of the A1(M) like the person in the OP than on the bits of A1 that I'm familar with. I imagine that would be a pretty safe place to be actually, if not exactly pleasant.

Back in January, doing a 3am loop, I was looking to turn onto the A40. Instead, I turned 150m too early, which would normally have been fine, because there's a gate across the road I turned into. Except it had been left open, and, therefore, the "Authorized Vehicles Only" sign on the back was impossible to see. So I'm tootling down this road, thinking it's a bit odd, I don't remember there being a bike lane? Wow, this is really wide, lovely!
Oh.
I'd unwittingly turned onto the M40.

Frankly, apart from the adrenaline and worrying that I was about to be pulled by an unmarked copper? Well, I can't say the mainline was fabulous, because even at that time there was a steady stream of occasional vehicles. But once off at the next exit, on a motorway spur? It was preferable to the dual carriageway A40 that it became, because there was a nice wide hard shoulder.

The A40 wasn't bad, don't get me wrong. Very few cars, I could take the left lane and they'd go past with no problems. But I was sure paranoid about making sure that my rear light was still working, whereas not being seen on the motorway might have been an advantage!

Point being, that, for the same road, I'd prefer the hard shouldered motorway version over the non-motorway version, from a safety standpoint. I can't make any direct comparisons with the main M40, but I didn't feel concerned about being hit from behind, where I would have done on a dual carriageway that busy.

 

[Venod]

Yes, traffic was a lot less in the 80’s. Less than half the volume.

It must not as been as fast either, in one 25 event a club mate ran into the back of a stopped vehicle, I was feeling chuffed as I had beaten him, untill he gave me the news.

 

[DRM]

But that would occur at 60 mph as well. So includes B roads and unclassified.

B and unclassified roads don’t have slip roads to join them though do they, as do the vast majority of A roads, the A1 being in a minority as it has sliproads to join it as well as a small amount of junctions

 

[Ming the Merciless]

B and unclassified roads don’t have slip roads to join them though do they, as do the vast majority of A roads, the A1 being in a minority as it has sliproads to join it as well as a small amount of junctions

and that makes no difference. In both cases you are on roads where drivers at the speed limits applicable will likely kill you if they hit you. You made no mention of slip roads in your post I replied to , nor do I see why you think it suddenly relevant.

p.s. vast majority of A roads do not have slip roads.

 

[DRM]

Are you thinking of the same A1? I drive it regularly from the end of the A1(M) near Peterborough up to Doncaster. Lots of stretches with no hard shoulder. In fact, I'm struggling to think any bits with a hard shoulder but I'm sure there are some. Most slip roads are waaay shorter than motorway slip roads and there are loads of them, often with tight bends that unsight and slow down the joining traffic. It's incredibly un-motorway like. And to be fair, it doesn't spring to mind as a place where I see a lot of lunatic driving. (NB My original post on this was to agree with Drago that the sections that are not a motorway should not be treated by drivers as a motorway. )

Not a place I'd go near on a bike. But also nothing like a motorway.

In fact I think I'd prefer to ride (illegaly) on hard shoulder of the A1(M) like the person in the OP than on the bits of A1 that I'm familar with. I imagine that would be a pretty safe place to be actually, if not exactly pleasant.

Yes the self same road, the bits from around Peterborough north have no hard shoulder, there’s a bit in Lincolnshire that’s got a 50 mph limit, but further north from Knottingley in West Yorkshire all the way to the Western Bypass at Gateshead is Motorway, a fair chunk of it 3 lane, and as for riding a bike where I described, he was about half a mile from a 2 lane slip road just before the Washington turn off, which is probably why the unmarked police car was heading north at great speed with lights and sirens on, to get to this idiot before he got flattened

 

[DRM]

and that makes no difference. In both cases you are on roads where drivers at the speed limits applicable will likely kill you if they hit you. You made no mention of slip roads in your post I replied to , nor do I see why you think it suddenly relevant.

p.s. vast majority of A roads do not have slip roads.

I said the vast majority of A roads don’t have slip roads too, the A1 does, made no mention of it as it is obvious that Motorways do have slip roads.

 

[Solocle]

I said the vast majority of A roads don’t have slip roads too, the A1 does, made no mention of it as it is obvious that Motorways do have slip roads.

And yet it's perfectly legal to cycle along the A27.

Since there's a hard shoulder, this is actually directly comparable to motorways, and the approach should be to stop in the gore point, and wait for a break in traffic, then cross the slip road perpendicularly, resume riding in the hard shoulder.

Although it would be perfectly legal to cycle vehicularly, middle of lane 1, becomes lane 3, merge left one lane at a time until back in lane 1.