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Smart Motorways

Robster59 said:
I have never liked motorways where you don't have a permanent hard shoulder. People on motorways tend to drift into a different world as they are going for miles and miles at the same speed. Cruise control compounds this situation. Their mind drifts and they don't pay attention to road signs. I've seen that often in my travels.
In my company, something like this would never have got through our Risk Assessment process. We work on fatalities every x thousand years. Divide that by the number of installations (in our case) and then that gives you an indication of the potential of death. On a motorway it just takes one person out of hundreds potentially passing a stricken vehicle not to be paying attention, and you have an accident waiting to happen.
There are too many variables to make it safe. The use of the term "smart motorways" is an oxymoron in my opinion.
Click to expand...
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/safety-on-smart-motorways

An actual risk assessment or what we think it would be?

Evidence indicates that smart motorways are helping to improve safety. The first nine of the latest generation of smart motorways have reduced casualty rates by more than 25 per cent.
 
SaintHacker said:
It will be interesting to see the stats in a few years, assuming they don't can the whole thing. As far as I'm aware the older 'upgraded' motorways, M25, M42 are controlled by a human who relies on seeing incidents on a cctv screen. The newer ones that are being built, M6 M3 M27 are computer ontrolled. The computer constantly monitors traffic flow and if it senses a problem does something about it far quicker than a human could. But as with anything it doesn't matter what the technology is it amostly comes down to driver behaviour.

On a slightly different note I had a good chat with a road engineer a few years ago. His answer to solve problems is very simple, bring the speed limits down, not up. Sounds mad? He said to me if you bring the speed down to say 50mph, the stopping gaps reduce to almost half what you need at 70-80mph, thus you can get a lot more traffic through a given length of road. Also people will be far more inclined to use lane 1 as they won't have the problem of getting stuck behind an HGV doing 56 and trying to get out into a lane moving at 70+ to get round it.
Makes a lot of sense when you think about it, it'll never catch on...
Click to expand...
There is a pinch point south of Newcastle, A1 Western Bypass going past the Angel of the North, if anyone is interested. It goes past the Angel, Metro Centre, Team Valley Trading Estate and beyond. It was widened a few years ago and whilst that was happening they reduced the limit to 50mph. When it was finished they kept the limit to 50mph. I don't use it regularly but when I do go through it it seems to work well, the traffic flows.

There is another pinch point north of the city, near Gosforth, and the same is happening. I can see that being retained as well as that is working so far.

It feels painful to travel at that speed so I would not want the whole network limited that way but I agree with your engineer that it works well. No severe braking, no concertina effect so you keep moving rather than the stop start that blights hotspots.
 
pauljames87 said:
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/safety-on-smart-motorways

An actual risk assessment or what we think it would be?

Evidence indicates that smart motorways are helping to improve safety. The first nine of the latest generation of smart motorways have reduced casualty rates by more than 25 per cent.
Click to expand...
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...ys-present-ongoing-risk-of-death-says-coroner

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...-referred-to-cps-over-m1-smart-motorway-death

https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/new...p-police-commissioner-after-m1-deaths-3110187

https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/ne...hs-unavoidable-citys-smart-motorways-19908121

Maybe it's not exactly as you suggest. Using percentages of accidents to support a no hard shoulder policy is spurious data. Any deaths due to vehicles breaking down in the inside lane is unacceptable and offsetting these lives against gains in traffic flow is not acceptable.
 
SocketRocket said:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...ys-present-ongoing-risk-of-death-says-coroner

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...-referred-to-cps-over-m1-smart-motorway-death

https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/new...p-police-commissioner-after-m1-deaths-3110187

https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/ne...hs-unavoidable-citys-smart-motorways-19908121

Maybe it's not exactly as you suggest. Using percentages of accidents to support a no hard shoulder policy is spurious data. Any deaths due to vehicles breaking down in the inside lane is unacceptable and offsetting these lives against gains in traffic flow is not acceptable.
Click to expand...

Misread the entire point tho. Rob said it wouldn't get past risk assessment

However the risk assessment proved safer than current

Didn't say it meant they were 100% safer ...

Plus when does the blame for break downs get put more on those who don't maintain their cars? Poor state of repair .. running out of fuel..

Blow outs and punctures are two of the few random chances but even punctures can be down to poor condition tyres
 
pauljames87 said:
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/safety-on-smart-motorways

An actual risk assessment or what we think it would be?

Evidence indicates that smart motorways are helping to improve safety. The first nine of the latest generation of smart motorways have reduced casualty rates by more than 25 per cent.
Click to expand...
I dislike data that uses "killed or seriously injured"....
More than 100 KSI on hard shoulders every year - so what is it?
1 killed and 99 serious injuries? Still 1 too many killed but its not a big number.
Or is it 50:50..?
They must have the actual numbers...print them.
 
Imurg said:
I dislike data that uses "killed or seriously injured"....
More than 100 KSI on hard shoulders every year - so what is it?
1 killed and 99 serious injuries? Still 1 too many killed but its not a big number.
Or is it 50:50..?
They must have the actual numbers...print them.
Click to expand...

Agreed
 
pauljames87 said:
Misread the entire point tho. Rob said it wouldn't get past risk assessment

However the risk assessment proved safer than current

Didn't say it meant they were 100% safer ...

Plus when does the blame for break downs get put more on those who don't maintain their cars? Poor state of repair .. running out of fuel..

Blow outs and punctures are two of the few random chances but even punctures can be down to poor condition tyres
Click to expand...
What a weak argument to protect the unprotectable. Do you really believe that!
 
SocketRocket said:
What a weak argument to protect the unprotectable. Do you really believe that!
Click to expand...

How can you not? A lot newer cars on the road , due to various reasons (company cars, leasing, people paying things on finance) meaning less break downs overall

Better maintained roads (repairing pot holes) and kept clean of debris means less punctures

Reducing risk overall

All these figures will have come into play
 
pauljames87 said:
How can you not? A lot newer cars on the road , due to various reasons (company cars, leasing, people paying things on finance) meaning less break downs overall

Better maintained roads (repairing pot holes) and kept clean of debris means less punctures

Reducing risk overall

All these figures will have come into play
Click to expand...
So someone gets a puncture, a juggernaut ploughs into them and it's their fault. Really!
 
Apart from the obvious difference of having extra lanes, driving on a Smart motorway with all lanes open is little different to driving on a dual carriageway with no hard shoulder.
If you break down you face the same scenario.
The speed limits are the same, the dangers are the same.
There's 1 difference
Smart motorways are being monitored and advance warning, by means of signs or speed limit changes, is given to give people time to react.
Who's watching the dual carriageways..?
Do we junk them too?
 
SocketRocket said:
That's what you intimated. If you realise it was the wrong thing to say then it's OK to take it back.
Click to expand...
.https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/car-n...-are-the-top-cause-of-car-breakdown-call-outs

Would you shift the Blame to the car industry? Removing the spare wheel from cars .. (progress and cost saving much like smart motorways)

If somebody changed their wheel on the hard shoulder opposed to waiting for a break down van does that not reduce the risk of being hit?

Change is a balance of risk and cost
 
pauljames87 said:
.https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/car-n...-are-the-top-cause-of-car-breakdown-call-outs

Would you shift the Blame to the car industry? Removing the spare wheel from cars .. (progress and cost saving much like smart motorways)

If somebody changed their wheel on the hard shoulder opposed to waiting for a break down van does that not reduce the risk of being hit?

Change is a balance of risk and cost
Click to expand...
Changing a wheel on the hard shoulder is the last thing you should be doing..
 
Imurg said:
Changing a wheel on the hard shoulder is the last thing you should be doing..
Click to expand...

How many people do you see doing it tho before carrying on their journey? With the warning triangle behind

But your right it shouldn't be done, you should just call the aa (or other company)
 
Imurg said:
Apart from the obvious difference of having extra lanes, driving on a Smart motorway with all lanes open is little different to driving on a dual carriageway with no hard shoulder.
If you break down you face the same scenario.
The speed limits are the same, the dangers are the same.
There's 1 difference
Smart motorways are being monitored and advance warning, by means of signs or speed limit changes, is given to give people time to react.
Who's watching the dual carriageways..?
Do we junk them too?
Click to expand...
Most dual carriageways have grass shoulders/ pavements so it's possible to get off the carriageway. The traffic flows tend to be lower. There is a chance of someone running into you on them and it's not an ideal situation. I would suggest any new dual carriageways should include a safety lane.

The issue with smart motorways is the danger being designed into them with full understanding of the danger they give. The M4 is currently being converted between Reading and Heathrow with pull in areas still one and a half miles apart. This is dangerous.
 
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