No More " Smart " Motorways

I use motorways a lot and there is no question that so-called Smart motorways are deadly dangerous. Period. They only exist because it costs less to create four lanes with no hard shoulder, and even then it's costing many billions of pounds to create a system that is fundamentally dangerous.

Imagine the situation if your engine dies on a busy motorway and you are stranded. Possibly you have no lights either. In the next few minutes your life and those of your passengers are in grave danger.

Within a second or two the driver of the car behind will have to react to this situation (which takes perhaps half a second) and will have to do an emergency stop to avoid you, or swerve into the next lane (without time to look if there is anyone in that lane) to avoid the stricken vehicle. The car (or truck) behind doing perhaps 75mph will then be confronted with a stationary vehicle. It's easy to see how so many people get killed on smart motorways.

It could take many minutes before someone alerts the highways authority to allow the closed lane red X to be displayed, and during that time the stricken vehicle and occupants are at grave risk.

From personal experience, I can tell you that if you are travelling at motorway speeds and the car in front suddenly changes lane to reveal a stationary car, you have to be really on the ball to be able to stop in time to avoid a collision. The alternative is to suddenly switch into lane 2, which again is a risky move and could create a crash.

That's why I will only drive in lane 3 or 4 whilst driving on a smart motorway in heavy traffic. Lanes 2 and 3 carry too much of a risk factor.

Anyone with even half a brain can see that the concept of removing the hard shoulder is dangerous and a recipe for disaster.

And don't even get me started on the difficulty of getting emergency vehicles and recovery trucks to the scene when all lanes are blocked with stationary traffic following a crash.

The politicians who gave the green light for smart motorways should be taken to court for manslaughter.

It's criminal. There's no other word for it.

 

Another fatality on a "Smart" motorway
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...irgNgeId_biXhCjF1l9GKUad0M7csV-G7vxakKstpOaQU

 

There is a similar sign on the A61 near Ripon. I had the father of one of these so called motorcycle accidents talking to me about his son’s “accident” . The son had run out of petrol on his scooter, so he rang dad to bring him some. Whilst waiting the son sat on his scooter side saddle, he then fell off the scooter backwards and bumped his head. This is one of those recorded motorcycle accidents. All is not always as it seems.

 

That could of happened on any motorway smart or not. She was hit in the forth lane.

 

Sydney Harbour bridge is an example of above , it works reasonably well , and , as there's no cheap options to widening a bridge , it's a good idea/option ! And as it's only a relatively small distance !?

 

Yes, works well for Auckland harbour bridge too. The change over of lanes is controlled by a movable barrier as well as lights

 

True but part of the justification for Smart Motorways was that they were supposed to actually be safer because of the automatic detection systems for broken down cars in any lane.
In this case the system that could have prevented this had been broken for something like a week and it's not a rare occurrence...