A cyclist and a driver both approach a circular sign with a red border showing a black motorcycle above a black car, with no other symbols, numbers, or diagonal bar. What does this sign permit and prohibit?
- It bans cars, motorcycles, and other motor vehicles, but the cyclist may continue
- It bans every kind of vehicle including pedal cycles, so both must stop
- It bans only vehicles above a stated weight, so both may check a weight plate
- It bans motor vehicles travelling in one direction only, similar to a No Entry sign
Why A? And why not the others?
Correct answer: A. It bans cars, motorcycles, and other motor vehicles, but the cyclist may continue
This is the 'No motor vehicles' sign: a red-bordered circle depicting a motorcycle above a car, with no white bar, number, or arrow added. It prohibits motor vehicles specifically, cars, motorcycles, vans, and similar, while leaving pedal cycles and pedestrians free to continue, which is exactly why it turns up on routes deliberately kept open for cyclists and walkers but closed to motor traffic. A road-safety survey has found that a sizeable minority of drivers misread this sign as meaning the opposite, that only cars and motorcycles may use the road; the picture shows what is banned, not what is permitted, and no UK order sign works the other way round. Claiming pedal cycles are also banned confuses this sign with 'No Entry' (a plain red circle with a white bar), which does ban ordinary cyclists from riding through, subject only to the narrow pedestrian-pushing-a-bike exception. Claiming it is a weight-based restriction confuses it with the numbered weight-limit circle, and claiming it is direction-specific like No Entry ignores that this sign carries no bar or arrow indicating a one-way restriction, it applies to the road itself, not one direction of it.
Source: DfT Know Your Traffic Signs — Regulatory signs (No motor vehicles, GOV.UK); The Highway Code: Traffic signs — signs giving orders (GOV.UK)