L plates on the motorway

[SamWise72]

This is not an "Am I allowed to" post; I know it's not allowed. Three times in the last month, however, I've taken a wrong exit on a roundabout, and had to go one exit on the motorway to get back off (last night, I took the same wrong exit twice because I'm a muppet).

My question is, what would plod do if they stopped me?

[Andrew122]

Wasn't there somebody on here a few weeks back whose bike had been seized by off-duty plod for doing exactly this? The legality of this is hardly clear, but when plod wants your bike plod gets your bike.

Driving other than in accordance with your licence?
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Restricted licence: 11th May 2012
Daelim Roadwin 125 (Sold) --> Bikeless!

[Matt-]

Depends what mood he's in to be honest some cant be bothered with the paperwork.

Worst that could happen is you would get your bike seized and some points.

Why are you worrying for, you've got away with it 3 times, solider on lad !

Matt
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RIP jack (wheelie king), you will never be forgotten.
Current Bike's - Road Legal TZR 125 Pitbike, Aprilia SR50R 2010

[SamWise72]

I don't plan to repeat it (the twice yesterday I went several miles in the wrong bloody direction, and it took 20 mins to get back to where I was each time. Trouble is, if you fuck up on a roundabout and hit the slip road, you've got no options. What are you gonna do, turn round and ride back down?

[blito]

What you do is pull up on the hard shoulder the instant you reach the blue "motorway" sign and walk back to the roundabout and find a safe place to rejoin the NSL traffic instead.
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2012 Zontes Monster

[Matt B]

[SamWise72]

[thepuma]

Don't wish to be funny here but, have you had any lessons or done your theory test?

Cos to be repeating errors like that imho is worrying. This time its a motorway sign you missed...what next? A one way street the wrong way? A stop sign? A no entry...I could go on.

I'm not meaning to sound like I'm having a go, but a motorway sign is huge and blue, if you've done it more than once then I dunno, somethings not right.

I think you need to be more aware when you're riding because you really need to have your wits about you out there or you're gonna get hurt.

We all make mistakes for sure, but I dunno.

Sorry.
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YBR125 (SOLD) - CBR250R(SOLD) - CBR650F(SOLD) Current - Street Triple
765 RS

[Mark 37]

[SamWise72]

On the first occasion, I was using a satnav, and had forgotten to put it on "avoid motorways". It was my first ride (Southampton-Cambridge and back, a long one for a first), and I was paying more attention to the traffic around me on the roundabout than the sign.

Yesterday, it's down to a completely confusing sign, which appears to say first exit, motorway, second A-road, third motorway. I positioned myself as such, only to find the second exit was in fact motorway, but there was no way to safely change lanes. Second time, I assumed I'd missed something the first time, but I hadn't. Saw that the first exit was in fact the one I wanted as it went by, and since it was end of rush hour and all lanes were full but fast moving, there was no safe opportunity to move right and go round again.

I've been driving cars for 17 years, many tens of thousands of miles under the wheels. These situations happened because my experience told me it was too dangerous to change lanes in a hurry.

[thepuma]

Its all down to preparation and reading the road ahead, if you'd have done that then you wouldn't be in a position where there's no way out other than heading onto a motorway....at worst you could probably be 1 lane from where you need to be...and a bit of indicating and obs and I'm sure you could have got across...but to be so far across from where you need to be that its impossible to get out...I dunno.


I think 'some' of it is down to being a learner on a bike and still getting to grips with the machine, so instead of reading the road ahead you sometimes are more concerned with getting in gear and not wobbling, as well as worrying about other cars around you...so I'd say 'some' of it may be to do with that....other than that maybe slow down a bit and take in the signs as you firstly approach the islands/junctions....when I first started on the bike I somehow felt pressured to go faster by other cars, but I soon realised this just led to me making mistakes, so I just rode at my own pace (and within the speed limits) and thought "stuff everyone else, I need to be doing this properly)


We all make mistakes, I made a few when learning...but the main thing is that you learn from them and think what you can do next time so it doesbt happen again.

Doesn't matter which way you look at it, going down a motorway THREE times by accident is a cause for concern. You just need to make sure it don't happen again, cos if you get into the habit of doing it and you do it on your test, its an instant fail.
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YBR125 (SOLD) - CBR250R(SOLD) - CBR650F(SOLD) Current - Street Triple
765 RS

[Rogerborg]

To go on one motorway, Mr. SamWise72, may be regarded as a misfortune; to go on three looks like carelessness.

The potential financial and legal penalty for getting yourself back off the slip road is less than for getting tugged on the motorway, committing an absolute offence while sporting big "nick me!" L plates.

So, yes, get back off the slip any way that you can. It seems counter-intuitive, it doesn't make sense for an experienced driver, when when did "sense" and "road policing" go together?
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[Shinigami]

[SamWise72]

Less carelessness, more rampant fuckwittery. I was only one lane change away from being able to go round, but at the A30/M3 junction at 6:15 pm, it's near nose to tail, and moving at speed. There was no safe way to change lanes. The fact that I misunderstood the sign WILL, I'm, SURE turn out to be my own fuckwittery, but taking the exit was the right move. Stopping and wheeling it back to the junction was the bit I should have done next.

The other thing I need to do is just take my bloody test already. I've watched a couple of videos, and I'm fairly sure I could be ready in 2 weeks. I'm getting plenty of miles (120 mile round trip 3 days a week) to practise in, just need to make sure I'm practising the right things, and also, learn my bloody route. What's irritating about this is that I've taken that same roundabout correctly on four previous occasions. I cannot understand what was going on in my head yesterday, but my life will be an easier thing when I can legitimately take the next exit but one, and ride down the motorway home taking an hour out of the journey time. My motorway cockups have at least shown me that riding the 125 on the motorway ain't gonna be any problem at all.

[SamWise72]

[Ayrton]

Looks to me like you need to slow down and plan your route properly.

There was someone who had his ped taken by the plod and point i think,

[SamWise72]

I think we've squarely established that this happened because I am a dick. It was a one time situation (two times in one time, obviously) and unlikely to happen again.

At some point, however, I will once more get stuck heading for an exit I don't want. It's human error, it happens. I might be a new biker, but I'm not a new road user; I've driven for 17 years with no accidents, including 10 years of making my living in jobs that required nationwide travel, and two years of driving an old bus too and from India. These are the priorities that guide my decision making on the road.

1) What the traffic around you is doing. The worst thing you can do is ride into the path of danger. It would be better to ride into the end of an empty one way street than into the path of a truck. It would be better to go through a stop line on a red than to be rear-ended by a BMW.

2) The road regulations. Avoid going the wrong way down a one way street, avoid riding onto the motorway if you're not licensed etc.

3) The direction you want to go. This is ultimately not that important. Take a wrong turn, you can go back. Chuck yourself under a truck trying to avoid it, you might be dead on a permanent basis. Go the wrong way down a one way street or onto the motorway (here's the lesson for me) and you might end up with points or a ban. Both of these is much more important than a wrong turn.

Beating yourself (or me) up about not correctly reading a sign and ending up at the wrong exit is missing the point. Those skills will get you to where you're going smoothly, but they aren't what will give you a long and safe riding or driving career. I'm sure you've seen BMWs bombing across large cross hatched areas, or even reversing up the hard shoulder because they missed their exit. Don't be that guy.

I made a mistake that didn't matter; I misread the sign and got in the wrong lane. It's not important, and saying that's worrying is missing the point. Once I was in that situation, I made one correct decision (to take the exit, not put myself in danger) and one bad one (to continue onto the motorway), which was made out of ignorance/a misguided idea of common sense. I won't ride onto the motorway again. Will I take the wrong exit again? Probably. Will it matter? No. It might take me on the wrong road; never mind. It might take me onto a motorway sliproad, but I'll stop and walk back, lesson learned.

If, however, you think the critical thing here is me making a mistake about which exit, then you are the one with the problem longer term, because you'll make them too, and your focus should be on staying safe when you do.

[daemonoid]

You should practice getting out of sticky situations quickly. You're on a bike so changing lanes is not too tricky once you've got the knack - shoulder check, accelerate / decelerate and merge in the turn. Use the lack of width to your advantage, stay on the white lines.

You really do have acceleration on your side, even on a 125 - cars are terribly slow on roundabouts, even the big ones. And I can't overstate the width benefits - you don't even need the lane - just share the one next to you. If all else fails, check your mirrors and brake - it's the safest way out of the majority of situations when you're already at the peak of your input processing ability.
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@thomasgarrard | www.straitjkt.com | www.racingseven.com

[thepuma]

I hear what you're saying Sam and I agree, everyone makes mistakes, but the reason why we say its 'worrying' is because it happened three times and in close proximity, so obviously no lesson was learnt from the first 2 times and therefore we can only assume it could happen again.

You say you carried on because you felt it 'dangerous' to move over 'one' lane.....if you'd planned well in advance, been aware what was around you (at an early stage) there would have been plenty of time to indicate, have a look across and maneuver across.....you'll find that if you indicate and position yourself so other vehicles have a good idea what your intentions are, then someone will let you in.

I get the feeling you found yourself In the wrong lane, looked across at a ton of traffic in the correct lane and then thought "f@ck it, ill just go down the motorway rather than make my way across that lot"

Obviously when youre new and on a bike, these kind of maneuvers make you feel vulnerable, but its really no different to doing it in a car...if you were in a car you would have cut across somehow wouldn't you? If you knew taking that wrong exit would for instance make you late for work?

Trust me, everyone makes mistakes when they're learning....my stupid mistake was deciding to change down gear halfway round a bend in the wet and my back end snaked on me...thankfully I managed to recover it but boy did it shit me up....and a totally moronic thing to do looking back..so yeah, we all do silly things, we just have to learn from it.
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YBR125 (SOLD) - CBR250R(SOLD) - CBR650F(SOLD) Current - Street Triple
765 RS

[SamWise72]

Ok, three times in a short space of time, but on the other hand, over 1200 miles in that time.

Second, I would have had to move two lanes. On this roundabout, there are two lanes dedicated to the motorway exit; I was in the left one of them, the other, which I would have had to move THROUGH, not just into, had cars fairly nose to tail at about 30 mph. Possibly a more experienced rider would have been quick enough to get safely into a gap; I'm not, so I did the safer thing.

Lessons were learned from the first twice. Number one was "remember your Satnav could be wrong". Number two was "Look more carefully at the sign when you come back around. I did look more closely, and still ended up in the wrong lane. The point is, none of those mistakes actually mattered very much. They were minor, unimportant mistakes that exposed nobody to danger.

The junction in question involves three lanes of traffic, merging into two at about 50 shortly before the roundabout, and then out into three again on the roundabout. At 6 pm it's slow as hell, at 7 pm it's probably fairly quiet, but at 6:30, loads of people, but not enough for gridlock. It's all happening fast, and the main thing to focus on is not getting yourself in a dangerous situation, and that's what I successfully did each time.

[C1REX]

Everybody can do such a mistake. If not exactly this one then a different one.

What blito said I would turn the engine off and walk the bike back. That the flexibility that cars can't give.

I sometimes push the bike through closed part of roads to save time.
London couriers push bike through zebra crossing to save some time when a turn is prohibited.

I hope this helps
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[SamWise72]

If there's a next time, that's exactly what I'll do I didn't half feel a muppet when I made the same error a second time!

Here's my defence. This is the junction in question; I was approaching on the A331 from the north, and the roundabout in question is the little one to the north of the M3 there.
[url]
https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=farnham&hl=en&ll=51.318812,-0.754709&spn=0.015047,0.042272&sll=52.8382,-2.327815&sspn=7.448108,21.643066&hnear=Farnham,+Surrey,+United+Kingdom&t=m&z=15[/url]


Here's a google maps photo of the sign you see. You glance at that whilst approaching in fast moving traffic at 50, and you see that the second road sign is the green one for the A30. Now, in fact, it's telling you that both the M3 south AND the A30 are on the first exit, because it's a compound junction (if that's a word), but when you've got a lot else to concentrate on, it's easy to think "A30, second exit". I'll freely admit that doing it twice is nuggetry of the highest order, but tell me that ain't a confusing sign.

https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=Farnham&hl=en&ll=51.31973,-0.761801&spn=0.003762,0.010568&sll=52.8382,-2.327815&sspn=7.448108,21.643066&hnear=Farnham,+Surrey,+United+Kingdom&t=m&z=17&layer=c&cbll=51.31959,-0.761644&panoid=cdgOGvgCEgDalfcGeV7dcA&cbp=12,140.26,,0,0

[thepuma]

[SamWise72]

Actually, this view better shows what I mean about a compound junction.
[url]
https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=farnham&hl=en&ll=51.315781,-0.756276&spn=0.007524,0.021136&sll=52.8382,-2.327815&sspn=7.448108,21.643066&hnear=Farnham,+Surrey,+United+Kingdom&t=m&z=16[/url]

[SamWise72]