Looks as though the safety of so called smart motorways is being increasingly called into question with a Coroner and now a Police and Crime Commissioner adding their six pennorth. I personally detest the things. In my book a hard shoulder is where, in the event of a breakdown or other emergency, you can hopefully, escape the traffic flow and gain refuge, with at least some degree of safety. I accept that traffic flow is improved by utilising an otherwise unoccupied hard shoulder as an additional lane. Maybe I'm just stuck in the past but the prospect of a breakdown on a smart motorway fills me with utter dread, whatever the Government claims.
I fully agree and cannot understand the logic. Even the AA for years and years have been saying the hard shoulder is the most dangerous part of the motorway. The recommendation is, if you break down don't remain in your vehicle if at all possible and wait for recovery the other side of any barrier or on an embankment. So how do these so called experts expect that ridding the roads of even these safety margins to improve anything apart from traffic flow? Perhaps the plan is linked with city speed restrictions, extra cycle lanes, congestion charges, alongside making cities so slow to drive through it isnt worth having a motorised vehicle. They want to make long distance travel so dangerous people wont do it in their own vehicles???????? I just look at a bypass round my small town built in the late 60's to speed up traffic without disrupting a historic town. It was 2 lanes each way with a national speed limit. These days its still a dual carriageway, limited to 40mph (there is a planning "consultation" posted, meaning in reality "this is whats happening next", for 30mph limits in parts of it), but only1 lane each way with parking areas and a cycle lane taking up what was always the other lane.......................... Progress...................???? I know these seem incongruous arguments but i am really starting to believe that the "liberal elite" dont want the "plebs" ,you and me, to have true freedom of movement
Losing the hard shoulder is a recipe for disaster. I witnessed an accident on the M4 about ten years ago - the car that lost control ended up the bank but me and the other car they barely missed had to stop on the hard shoulder so I could run back and make sure they were OK. With no hard shoulder it would not have been safe to stop until I reached the next refuge bay, and those are miles apart. (The driver was ok but in bad shock).
People have got so used to the hard shoulder being an open lane that they now use it even when the gantry signs say not to.. As a regular user of the M6 it gets frightening the number of cars undertaking on the hard shoulder when it is meant to be closed.
The Department for Transport said "smart motorways are as safe as, or safer than, the conventional ones". If that's the case Mr DFT, when will you start converting all of the motorways to smart ones. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-55782301
I agree with every word you say, apart from blaming it all on a 'liberal elite'. Motorways and trunk roads are under the control of central government, which, for the last 10 years, has been firmly in Conservative (large and small 'c') hands. I agree that this elite doesn't want too many of us plebs to get in the way of their ministerial limousines, though.
We have our fair share of SM's here in Yorkshire and I've hated them from day 1. I don't use them that often now I'm retired but when I do I dread having any sort of breakdown or emergency. The then Chief Constable of SYP at the time of their conception, warned of the danger posed by SM's and that, sooner or later, we would be looking at an inquest into a death on one and here we are.
Dead right Yorkshireman, with Audi, BMW and Mercedes drivers leading the charge. Not necessarily in that order!
Sorry, gonna do my french tourist there. What is smart motorway? Is that when we can drive on the hard shoulder as traffic grows? Like the one arriving in Birmingham ? (don't fully remind but I think it's at J6 junction)
It is a vote loser to suggest making private transport less available and a vote winner to talk carbon emissions and greener systems. They know we are moving towards less vehicles, less emissions, only dont want to be the one to do it so wait for the tipping point. They are in limbo, not wanting to spend on upgrading roads they are supposed to be emptying of traffic, and still unable to suffer the backlash of actually putting measures in place to move more travellers onto public transport systems. Present measures for the roads cant involve investment, ingenuity must suffice.
Smart is a euphemism for allowing a motorway’s hard shoulder to be used as regular motorway carriage and enforce its variable speed limit through speed cams, average speed cam and any other automatic, zero human input device. On the face of it these things are a good idea. The trouble with them is that they are used by human beings and overseen by penny-pinching government departments. Half the drivers on the road are below average intelligence and too many of those above refuse to use their brains. Very few drivers actually think as they drive. If a car stops on anywhere on a road there is a high probability that it will be crashed into. People don’t think several cars ahead and treat the space between their front bumper and the car ahead as their inviolate space. Too few maintain their cars properly and despite cars having fuel gauges and/or odometers fitted for 80-90 years or so, w@nkers still run out of fuel. Combine than lot with total sh!t for brains idiots who think it’s OK to stop in the outside lane and you have a recipe for disaster. The numbers are that motorways, even the “Smart” ones, are still the safest roads in Britain. They’d be considerably safer if the people who use them actually thought about what they were doing. As for what to do about the “Smart” sections I think we should spend all the revenues from speed cams fitted plus whatever it takes to make sure ever section is monitored for stationary traffic. If these bastards can spot speeding cars how hard can it be to spot stationary ones?
