Yesterday evening, heading home from 4 days on site in Leicester. Coming westbound through Tollbar End, been through the A45/A46 roundabout and now approaching the second roundabout with a left-turn only lane which feeds onto the A46.
There was a chap riding a bike- the sort of cheap nasty "mountainbike" type- positioned in the left gutter of the left-turn only lane, 2/3 way up the ramp. From the position the chap was in there were only 2 options:
(1) At the top of the ramp somehow get across the constant stream of vehicles in the left-turn only lane and get onto around the roundabout (good luck with that, typically traffic comes up the left turn only lane starting from 50mph at the bottom and accelerating as they come through the curve)
OR
(2) Continue to bear left onto the A46 Kenilworth bypass.
Neither option was good but I hope to goodness he didn't take option (2). The slip leads onto what is a 3-lane section of very busy A-road, basically a motorway without a hard shoulder and full of HGVs. It was also raining, dark and all he had was a little blinky red rear light, not very bright. It's also the East Midlands where the driving style makes London look quite civilised and the roads are full of east European HGVs to/from the ferries and JLR products of varying type. (OK, so technically cycles are allowed on there but IMO you'd be way safer cycling on a typical M-way hard shoulder than cycling down the inside lane of A46 Kenilworth bypass, especially on a dark wet evening).
Scary stuff.
'Cat