Smart Motorways

[Swango1980]

I've said it before and I still stick with my view, the road isn't to blame, its the idiots that use it.
We've driven for years on two and three lane dual carriageways that don't have hard shoulders, or smart technology, without worry. Whats the difference? Its still a 70mph road.
A hard shoulder is all very well if you can get to it, what if you break down ib lane 3/4 and can't get across? And if you are unlucky enough to break down in a live lane and not make it to a refuge, would you prefer to have to traffic slowed to 40/50 mph by the signs as it passes or sit on a 'safe' hard shoulder with traffic still thundering by at 70+?
I agree the technology need to be improved to respond to breakdowns quicker but once that happens then a smart road will be no more dangerous than any other. Its the bloody morons who drive on a closed lane that need removing, in my view ut should be 6 points per sign passed. Pass 2 and its a ban, end of.

This is EXACTLY why designs need to be safe. If every single driver could be guaranteed to drive with 100% safety, then there would be zero requirement for safety to be considered at all in design. However, there will always be morons on the road. Furthermore, there will be people who drive just as "safely" as we all like to think we drive, yet end up in a fatal accident anyway. We are all human, so we cannot guarantee that we will be 100% alert 100% of the time. Furthermore, there could be other distractions on the road that we do not notice a stationary car in front. It could be at night and it is pitch black, and the stationary car has no hazards on. You could be over-taking someone, moving back into the nearside lane, not immediately realising a car 50-100m in front is actually stationary, because you've been focused on the vehicle you've just overtaken. There are probably hundreds of scenarios we could come up with that would highlight how having a hard shoulder would eliminate the issue almost entirely.

Most of us, thank goodness, will never be involved in a fatal accident. However, is it not short sighted / arrogant to think that every single person who has been involved in a fatal accident are "idiots" and that we are a much better driver than them? If that was the case, in every single incident there ill always be a prosecution for driving without due care and attention. However, I suspect that does not happen, because often the incident is deemed something that the driver could not be control. There are also the victims. Try telling the relatives of someone killed that the other "idiot" driver is the one to blame, and stop moaning about hard shoulders, as if that is not part of the issue.

The argument is that removing hard shoulders will increase deaths on the roads. They protect broken down drivers from "idiots" or otherwise. It is difficult to see how not having them is no more dangerous. Just because there might be an occasion that a driver cannot get into it doesn't really excuse not having them. A driver could crash their car, a tree come through the windscreen and kill them instantly. That does not mean we should just forget about wearing seatbelts, because they will not always protect us. We don't say "it is only idiots that cause crashes, and therefore it is not seat belts to blame it is the idiots on the road"

 

[Robster59]

I've said it before and I still stick with my view, the road isn't to blame, its the idiots that use it.
We've driven for years on two and three lane dual carriageways that don't have hard shoulders, or smart technology, without worry. Whats the difference? Its still a 70mph road.
A hard shoulder is all very well if you can get to it, what if you break down ib lane 3/4 and can't get across? And if you are unlucky enough to break down in a live lane and not make it to a refuge, would you prefer to have to traffic slowed to 40/50 mph by the signs as it passes or sit on a 'safe' hard shoulder with traffic still thundering by at 70+?
I agree the technology need to be improved to respond to breakdowns quicker but once that happens then a smart road will be no more dangerous than any other. Its the bloody morons who drive on a closed lane that need removing, in my view ut should be 6 points per sign passed. Pass 2 and its a ban, end of.

The point is that you should do everything you can to minimise risk. You have to take into account the stupidity of people when doing your research. Our company does it all the time. Sometimes I feel like banging my head about the rules they put in place but taking a stand back you realise that the reasons behind it are logical. The thing with smart motorways is they have taken something that was designed to keep the driver safer (the hard shoulder), and got rid of it. How many industries would remove something designed to improve safety, and replace it with something less safe? I know what would happen if I suggested that.

 

[Billysboots]

I've said it before and I still stick with my view, the road isn't to blame, its the idiots that use it.
We've driven for years on two and three lane dual carriageways that don't have hard shoulders, or smart technology, without worry. Whats the difference? Its still a 70mph road.
A hard shoulder is all very well if you can get to it, what if you break down ib lane 3/4 and can't get across? And if you are unlucky enough to break down in a live lane and not make it to a refuge, would you prefer to have to traffic slowed to 40/50 mph by the signs as it passes or sit on a 'safe' hard shoulder with traffic still thundering by at 70+?
I agree the technology need to be improved to respond to breakdowns quicker but once that happens then a smart road will be no more dangerous than any other. Its the bloody morons who drive on a closed lane that need removing, in my view ut should be 6 points per sign passed. Pass 2 and its a ban, end of.

There is absolutely no such thing as a dangerous road, I totally agree. But unfortunately, if you combine Smart motorway technology with a lot of drivers, you are destined to have one tragedy after another.

I’ve said it many, many times that we do not teach people to drive in this country, we teach them to pass a driving test. There is a huge difference, and whilst many seek to improve their driving once the L plates are off, many more don’t.

The standard of motorway driving, in particular, is generally appalling. Drivers who used to habitually sit in lane two on an otherwise empty carriageway have now become hoggers of lane three on four lane motorways. Tailgating is a huge problem. But the biggest issue is lack of attention. Far too many ignore lane closure signs on overhead gantries and it is only these which stand between motorists and carnage on a Smart motorway.

Safe in theory? Perhaps. But not when you add the motoring public to the mix. And therein lies your problem.

 

[IanM]

I think that "if you break-down, pray it's adjacent to a emergency layby" is not a great way of running motorways to be honest.

Drove M4 and M25 to St Albans today. I'm surprised some of these clowns took a test.

 

[Billysboots]

I think that "if you break-down, pray it's adjacent to a emergency layby" is not a great way of running motorways to be honest.

Drove M4 and M25 to St Albans today. I'm surprised some of these clowns took a test.

Some of them probably haven’t.

 

[Blue in Munich]

There is absolutely no such thing as a dangerous road, I totally agree. But unfortunately, if you combine Smart motorway technology with a lot of drivers, you are destined to have one tragedy after another.

I’ve said it many, many times that we do not teach people to drive in this country, we teach them to pass a driving test. There is a huge difference, and whilst many seek to improve their driving once the L plates are off, many more don’t.

The standard of motorway driving, in particular, is generally appalling. Drivers who used to habitually sit in lane two on an otherwise empty carriageway have now become hoggers of lane three on four lane motorways. Tailgating is a huge problem. But the biggest issue is lack of attention. Far too many ignore lane closure signs on overhead gantries and it is only these which stand between motorists and carnage on a Smart motorway.

Safe in theory? Perhaps. But not when you add the motoring public to the mix. And therein lies your problem.

Anyone would think you might know something about this...

Had to attend a lunchtime site meeting at a junction renovation. As part of the temporary traffic management there is a left turn ban on one arm of the junction; the sign is on an A frame at windscreen height. Ray Charles & Stevie Wonder couldn't miss it, but I wish I'd had a pound for every driver that decided it didn't apply to them and turned left against it. On the way back there was a woman sitting at 30mph in lane 2 of 2 on a 40mph limit dual carriageway whilst Lane 1 was empty. The standard of driving in this country is dire. Until we bring back decent levels of enforcement it will never change.

 

[Tashyboy]

Fair enough, but I'd still rather have the safety of a hard shoulder before working out how to get over that barrier. I'm guessing there are gaps in the barrier at certain intervals, so that someone with mobility issues can get through it? If so, easier to find that gap on the hard shoulder, rather than along a live lane

Am sure I mentioned earlier in In this thread, my daughter as a copper was called to an accident in the Sheffield area on a smart motorway. A woman was over weight and could not get over the barrier. She was sat on the barrier about 15 yards further along from the broken down car. A lorry slammed into the car, which hit her. Her legs were torn to shreds. The short version is she died. The longer version involves the lasting effect on the coppers, ambulance people, family and the A and E dr who stopped and told everyone they did a fantastic job.
Oddly enough my lad was on about smart motorways on a course he was on Saturday. The lay-bys which offer “ refuge” are not long enough to fit a class one lorry and recovery vehicle in ?

 

[Swango1980]

Am sure I mentioned earlier in In this thread, my daughter as a copper was called to an accident in the Sheffield area on a smart motorway. A woman was over weight and could not get over the barrier. She was sat on the barrier about 15 yards further along from the broken down car. A lorry slammed into the car, which hit her. Her legs were torn to shreds. The short version is she died. The longer version involves the lasting effect on the coppers, ambulance people, family and the A and E dr who stopped and told everyone they did a fantastic job.
Oddly enough my lad was on about smart motorways on a course he was on Saturday. The lay-bys which offer “ refuge” are not long enough to fit a class one lorry and recovery vehicle in ?

I was going to "Like" that comment as it makes a very good point, but the story was so shocking a "Like" seemed insensitive.

If a private company made a decision to remove a safety measure from their product / design, somebody using it died and it was subsequently determined that the death would not have had occurred had that safety measure still been in place, I would imagine the directors of that company would be very very nervous about what was coming their way in the legal forum. Huge fines, prison?

 

[clubchamp98]

For me along with the crap standard of driving.
They have got it the wrong way around.
The technology isn’t good enough but they built “ smart motorways any way”
They should not be opened until the technology is good and reliable enough.
But people are dying while they use them.

 

[clubchamp98]

There is a similar junction round here. Traffic lights, left hand lane has marked arrow to turn left And straight on plus a straight on arrow in right hand lane. Most traffic will queue in the right lane leaving the left lane clear, crazy! There are merge in arrows 50yds after junction so the planners expected both lanes to be used when going straight on.

I drive a lot in the USA where you can turn right on a red if there is no traffic.
There are some you can’t but they have different lights!( Multi lane highways mostly.)
We should trial turning left on a red light , it’s like any other junction really.

 

[SaintHacker]

This is EXACTLY why designs need to be safe. If every single driver could be guaranteed to drive with 100% safety, then there would be zero requirement for safety to be considered at all in design. However, there will always be morons on the road. Furthermore, there will be people who drive just as "safely" as we all like to think we drive, yet end up in a fatal accident anyway. We are all human, so we cannot guarantee that we will be 100% alert 100% of the time. Furthermore, there could be other distractions on the road that we do not notice a stationary car in front. It could be at night and it is pitch black, and the stationary car has no hazards on. You could be over-taking someone, moving back into the nearside lane, not immediately realising a car 50-100m in front is actually stationary, because you've been focused on the vehicle you've just overtaken. There are probably hundreds of scenarios we could come up with that would highlight how having a hard shoulder would eliminate the issue almost entirely.

Most of us, thank goodness, will never be involved in a fatal accident. However, is it not short sighted / arrogant to think that every single person who has been involved in a fatal accident are "idiots" and that we are a much better driver than them? If that was the case, in every single incident there ill always be a prosecution for driving without due care and attention. However, I suspect that does not happen, because often the incident is deemed something that the driver could not be control.

The argument is that removing hard shoulders will increase deaths on the roads. They protect broken down drivers from "idiots" or otherwise. It is difficult to see how not having them is no more dangerous.

There is absolutely no such thing as a dangerous road, I totally agree. But unfortunately, if you combine Smart motorway technology with a lot of drivers, you are destined to have one tragedy after another.

I’ve said it many, many times that we do not teach people to drive in this country, we teach them to pass a driving test. There is a huge difference, and whilst many seek to improve their driving once the L plates are off, many more don’t.

The standard of motorway driving, in particular, is generally appalling. Drivers who used to habitually sit in lane two on an otherwise empty carriageway have now become hoggers of lane three on four lane motorways. Tailgating is a huge problem. But the biggest issue is lack of attention. Far too many ignore lane closure signs on overhead gantries and it is only these which stand between motorists and carnage on a Smart motorway.

Safe in theory? Perhaps. But not when you add the motoring public to the mix. And therein lies your problem.

I totally agree with you. Its utterly laughable that you can pass your test having never even looked at a motorway, leave the test centre and go and drive round the M25! Crazy.

Another point is people seem to be thinking a hard shoulder is some kind of safe zone. It isnt. If i break down i dont care what the weather is doing I'm out of the car and over the barrier.

 

[Imurg]

I totally agree with you. Its utterly laughable that you can pass your test having never even looked at a motorway, leave the test centre and go and drive round the M25! Crazy.
.

Couldn't agree more but I cant see how it could be incorporated into a test without running into hours rather than the 40 minutes it currently is.
There are many test centres that are nowhere near a motorway so, unless you consolidate test centres into larger units that are closer to motorways, it isn't going to happen.
The problem then becomes one of getting to test centres and the extra costs involved.
If my nearest test centre was Oxford or Luton or Wycombe ( the 3 closest that are on a motorway) then I'd give up because I'd have to charge 40 quid an hour and have 2 hour lessons as a minimum just to make some money. And nobody will pay 40 quid an hour.

The standard of driving is falling..no doubt.
As an Instructor I teach the kids to drive as well as pass the test because the two are different.
As an example...if I had to teach someone to navigate a system like Hanger Lane in order to pass their test it would be useless to them if their route to work goes through there once they've passed.
They'd get eaten alive in seconds because, in real life, it's a free for all and if you drive the way you have to drive to pass the test you're in trouble.
My Old Man taught me to drive in the early 80s
I had 3 paid lessons to be sure I was ready
I got in the instructors car and he said Drive for 10 minutes, let's see what you can do.
10 minutes later he said " Do you always drive like that?"
Yes was the answer...
Well you'll never pass driving like that, you drive like you've been driving for 10 years..you have to drive like a learner...

Nothing has really changed in 40 years.

 

[Billysboots]

Another point is people seem to be thinking a hard shoulder is some kind of safe zone. It isnt. If i break down i dont care what the weather is doing I'm out of the car and over the barrier.

Absolutely spot on. The hard shoulder is the most dangerous part of a conventional motorway. I’ve dealt with pedestrians killed on it, recovery company drivers killed on it, you name it.

I recall once being at the scene of an earlier collision, with my fully liveried patrol car stationary on the hard shoulder, lit up like a Christmas tree. Didn’t stop a lorry driver piling into it at 58mph. Fortunately nobody was in it.

In the days when I was working on motorway patrol, on the occasions when I was on the hard shoulder on a stop/check I always had one eye on my rear view mirror. Always.

Don’t ever kid yourself a hard shoulder is safe. It’s not.

EDIT: The point of that being, of course, that if you do away with the hard shoulder and try and treat lane one as one in times of need, merely by having a red ‘X’ on an overhead gantry, you multiply the risk several times over. Bonkers.

 

[Swango1980]

Yeah, I would just like to clarify my earlier points in case my words are misinterpreted.

I do not think the hard shoulder is "safe". If someone broke down, I would absolutely not recommend they stay there and wait for recovery, and get a picnic out.

Simply saying that, speaking for myself personally, if I was to break down on a motorway I would without doubt prefer it was one with a hard shoulder. Hopefully it will allow me, in most cases, to pull out of a live lane and get to a place of relative safety. And, also put other drivers at less risk by hopefully removing an obstacle on their lane, particularly before the time any VMS signs warn them about it (assuming they're paying attention)

 

[Ross61]

I drive a lot in the USA where you can turn right on a red if there is no traffic.
There are some you can’t but they have different lights!( Multi lane highways mostly.)
We should trial turning left on a red light , it’s like any other junction really.

Bedford has had one of these for about 10 years, although it is only on one of the four entrances to the crossroads. There is lights on the straight on and turn right lanes, but the left lane has a ”give way” sign. This does cause some people who are using it for the first time to wait for lights, but a few toots on the horn sets them right. Apart from that it appears to work very well.

 

[clubchamp98]

Bedford has had one of these for about 10 years, although it is only on one of the four entrances to the crossroads. There is lights on the straight on and turn right lanes, but the left lane has a ”give way” sign. This does cause some people who are using it for the first time to wait for lights, but a few toots on the horn sets them right. Apart from that it appears to work very well.

Yes it would save a lot of time and fuel and shorten a lot of traffic build up.

 

[Ross61]

On the M1 Milton Keynes/ luton sections it is not the all lanes running type but the hard shoulder is use under heavy traffic, which is most of the day!
The problem is that around junctions and services it goes to all lanes running, which confuses people when it goes back to 3 lanes and there is then a bottleneck when vehicles then frantically try to move out from the inside lane.
My other gripe is when there is an accident and all four lanes are chocker, the emergency vehicles have problems getting to the scene and valuable time is lost… not safe in my mind

 

[4LEX]

Smart motorways will be scrapped within a few years. It's a ridiculous idea and the money wasted on creating them is staggering. It'll take one bad crash involving a family of kids or a school bus. Too little, too late.

So many drivers on motorways don't pay attention. You've got lorry drivers who are tired and bored, often livening things up by overtaking another lorry at 0.1mph difference or using their phone/watching a film on the iPad. You've got middle lane hoggers who are totally unaware of the issues they cause and that's just for starters. No one takes any notice of closed lanes signs or speed restrictions because the best thing is to carry on in the close laned for the maximum time and filter over. It saves so much time. You'd need new fines for driving in a closed lane before anyone takes it seriously.

Throw in the delays of an amblulance getting to the scene of a crash and the sheer amount of old and unreliable cars on the road. If you drive a lot on the motorways you always see clapped out cars at the side of it broken down.

The key should be removing traffic from the roads. I'd be in favour of every motorway being a toll road excluding lorries or vans. Higher rates for 1 person in a car too.

 

[Ye Olde Boomer]

duplicate post deleted

 

[Swango1980]

Smart motorways will be scrapped within a few years. It's a ridiculous idea and the money wasted on creating them is staggering. It'll take one bad crash involving a family of kids or a school bus. Too little, too late.

So many drivers on motorways don't pay attention. You've got lorry drivers who are tired and bored, often livening things up by overtaking another lorry at 0.1mph difference or using their phone/watching a film on the iPad. You've got middle lane hoggers who are totally unaware of the issues they cause and that's just for starters. No one takes any notice of closed lanes signs or speed restrictions because the best thing is to carry on in the close laned for the maximum time and filter over. It saves so much time. You'd need new fines for driving in a closed lane before anyone takes it seriously.

Throw in the delays of an amblulance getting to the scene of a crash and the sheer amount of old and unreliable cars on the road. If you drive a lot on the motorways you always see clapped out cars at the side of it broken down.

The key should be removing traffic from the roads. I'd be in favour of every motorway being a toll road excluding lorries or vans. Higher rates for 1 person in a car too.

Agree with most. But, putting tolls on motorways will likely push a lot more traffic onto less suitable roads. Also, there is a balance off, on one hand reducing traffic on roads (environmental, noise pollution, congestion, etc) and increasing it to keep the country well connected, thus boosting economy. I doubt public transport is in a position to be a reasonable alternative to those who currently drive.