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Foreign family of four found cycling on motorway

The family of four who are believed to be from outside the UK were escorted off the Scottish motorway by police

A family of four, who are believed to be from outside of the UK, were escorted from the hard shoulder of the A74(M) motorway in Scotland on Friday.

Police received reports from drivers that two adults and two children were cycling on the hard shoulder of the Scottish motorway in Dumfries and Galloway.

The family were found by police near the town of Beattock on the motorway - which stretches 48 miles from Gretna in the south all the way up to Abington in South Lanarkshire - before being escorted off.

The police reports say that the family were traveling southbound near Beattock, which would suggest that the family were helped off the road at junction 15.

If that was the case, and the family were escorted off the road at junction 15 near Beattock, speculation suggests that they may have joined the motorway at junction 14 - which is 14 miles away.

Whether or not the family spent 14 miles on the hard shoulder is unknown at this point, fortunately though there have been no reports of the family coming to any harm. The police have also reported that no further action will be taken.

A police spokesman spoke to STV about the situation: "We received a report of a family of four, two adults and two children, cycling southbound on the A74(M) and were escorted from the route."

This is certainly not the first example we've seen of a cyclists erroneously ending up cycling on the motorway.

In February of this year a 12-year old boy was found by Greater Manchester Police cycling on the M60 near Barton Bridge.

The police said he was escorted from the motorway, taken home, and "strongly advised" against cycling on the motorway in front of his parents.

> Read more: 12-year old boy found cycling on the motorway in Manchester

These sorts of incidents aren't confined to the UK either. In 2015, ahead of the Pan American Games in Toronto, Canada, the Brazilian national cycling team were found cycling on the highway.

Police escorted the team off the road and said the group were "extremely cooperative and apologetic."

Here on road.cc we've also seen a couple of other Brazilian cyclists riding on the motorway who were anything but apologetic.

In our favourite example of motorway cycling, these two Brazilian cyclists decided to draft a lorry on video, reaching speeds of 124 kilometres an hour.

> Read more: Video: Brazilian riders draft a lorry at 124km/h

We wouldn't recommend trying this yourselves.

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11 comments

Avatar
Bmblbzzz | 7 years ago
0 likes

Oh, fair point that in the UK many 'cycle routes' do take you along roads almost identical to motorways too. 

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Bmblbzzz | 7 years ago
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I've never seen a sign like the one that's pictured for the M20. Those pictograms are not standard UK road signs and neither is the use of metres, so I conclude that sign has been put there specifically because of the high likelihood of non-UK residents using that junction and not realising it's a motorway (cos maybe they associate such roads with the letter A not M, for instance); just like the "drive on the left" signs in Kent in English, French and German (perhaps other languages too). 

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Kim | 7 years ago
0 likes

Also worth noting that unlike the sign for the M20 shown about there is no such sign at junction 14 on the A74(M)

https://goo.gl/maps/1AU6TFSwZMu

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Edinburgh Festi... | 7 years ago
1 like

They probably thought they were following NCN 74, afterall it is called the Moss, Motte and Motorway Cycle Route 

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Peowpeowpeowlasers | 7 years ago
0 likes

Imagine how stupid it is to cycle on such a fast road.  Nobody would ever do that, right?

https://goo.gl/maps/jYD2kv8qp7p

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fluffy_mike | 7 years ago
1 like

Ironically, they would be safer - between junctions at least - on a motorway than on a typical A-road

On the latter you can expect frequent 60mph close passes, while on a motorway you are pretty much guaranteed your own lane - apart from the odd HGV driver drifting into the hard shoulder while he's cracking one off or watching Game of Thrones (or both)

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Ronald | 7 years ago
0 likes

Some of the better segregated cycle lanes...  3

With rather poor to non existent signing for traffic which cannot use motorways, who can blame them, and from this report police actually used appropriate sense of humour.

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I love my bike replied to Ronald | 7 years ago
0 likes

Ronald wrote:

Some of the better segregated cycle lanes...  3 With rather poor to non existent signing for traffic which cannot use motorways, who can blame them, and from this report police actually used appropriate sense of humour.

 

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@55.4442281,-3.6511619,3a,75y,266.21h,79.21t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1smfc_EnreIvSDgTTrwBzWVg!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

Nothing like the signage on the M20!

Further unified European signage standards might have helped, though that's even more unlikely to happen now.

 

 

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mike the bike | 7 years ago
1 like

 

I just love the idea that a whole family, protected only by their sublime ignorance, could pedal their way fourteen miles up a motorway.  Bless 'em.

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wycombewheeler replied to mike the bike | 7 years ago
1 like
mike the bike wrote:

 

I just love the idea that a whole family, protected only by their sublime ignorance, could pedal their way fourteen miles up a motorway.  Bless 'em.

Protected only by an unusually generous segregation distance?

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Guernsey Donkey | 7 years ago
1 like

Calling Beattock a town is stretching things a bit!

It consists of one farmhouse, A HGV checkpoint and a couple of railway sidings.

It is usually noted as the summit of the London - Glasgow railway line.

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