So, finally, in the face of mounting evidence, HM Gov has cancelled the expansion of smart motorways, the fight now is to revert those in place to motorways with a hard shoulder.
Its baffling how this was thought to be a good idea
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-65294356
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>>Its baffling how this was thought to be a good idea
Money saving...
M25, 1997, before smart motorways, my cousin, a great guy, was at the end of a stationary queue.
A HGV didn't see the queue. The emergency services thought his death would have been near instantaneous.
By co-incidence, I passed the screened off lane a short time later.
Smart motorways make rear end collisions even more likely. Hate them. Build more lanes - but of course that costs significantly more.
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The M90 was built in stages. Just north of the Forth Bridges, was built in the early 1960s - no hard shoulder! Overbridges, underbridges, slip roads etc etc. The bulk of the 30+ miles to Perth has hard shoulders but built/ upgraded to hard shoulders in the 70s+.
The few miles from the river to past Kinross still makes me feel uneasy without the hard shoulder. After the Perth junction the motorway gives way to a dual carriageway all the way to Aberdeen - I do not really have the same concerns on the dual carriageway road.
I used to travel to Aberdeen say 2 x per month before I retired and found the dual carriageway OK. I did, however, come upon an accident when a saloon car drove up the back of a tractor with ploughshares on the back, 7pm ish and dark night - the car driver was decapitated.
I had seen nothing other than the outcome until I rounded a slight bend on the dual carriageway - the flashing amber tractor light was on when I got there BUT I am not so sure it was on when the car ran into the tractor. Neither was anyone else in the 4/5 cars that stopped in the layby that was next to the accident scene.
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My old boss killed an elderly couple on the A90 heading to Aberdeen.
They had joined from one of the many right angle slip roads, without stopping they drove straight out into the carriageway and he T boned them at 70mph. Horrific.
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>> So, finally, in the face of mounting evidence, HM Gov has cancelled the expansion of
>> smart motorways, the fight now is to revert those in place to motorways with a
>> hard shoulder.
>>
I hate 'smart' motorways too, mainly because how the hell are emergency services supposed to get to pile-ups when there's no hard shoulder. But of course if they revert Lane 1 to permanent hard shoulder and reduce capacity that will worsen traffic...
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>> get to pile-ups when there's no hard shoulder. But of course if they revert Lane
>> 1 to permanent hard shoulder and reduce capacity that will worsen traffic...
I am not so sure. I have pretty good experience with some of them, pre and post "smartening" peak and off peak. Mostly M1 and M3 some m42.
There seems to be little difference in average speed, pre and post, In fact I would say where the M3 starts, it got worse post changes. When the smart lane is open (which isnt that often) it doesn't get much use (except Luton way where canny locals use it as a bypass)
All in all its an abject failure, pushed on in the face of little benefit and hugely and obvious increased risk. Its almost criminal negligence.
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>> I am not so sure. I have pretty good experience with some of them,
>> pre and post "smartening" peak and off peak. Mostly M1
I tend to agree. Presumably the scrapping just means that they're reverting lane 1 to permanent hard shoulder as opposed to the variable speed limits.
The only time I've seen the VSL cause big problems is when they let the work experience kid at the Highways Agency set the limits differently per lane (ie 20 | 30 | 50 | 60), which leads to chaos because no one knows which limit the cameras are set to.
The motoring lobby groups want the whole lot stripped out because of the speed cameras. Perhaps a fair compromise would be to switch to average speed between junctions instead of the GATSO style. Nothing more irritating than someone overtaking you and then stamping on the brakes as they pass under every gantry on the motorway.
Although the good thing about LED headlights is that it's possible to give a very convincing double-flash when the car doing 100+ goes under a gantry ahead of you.
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>> The motoring lobby groups want the whole lot stripped out because of the speed cameras.
>> Perhaps a fair compromise would be to switch to average speed between junctions instead of
>> the GATSO style. Nothing more irritating than someone overtaking you and then stamping on the
>> brakes as they pass under every gantry on the motorway.
Nope, cameras and gantries can stay exactly as they are. They work at 70mph+ anyway. All you need is a permanent red X over hard shoulder. Cost to scrap smart motorway is zero.
>> Although the good thing about LED headlights is that it's possible to give a very
>> convincing double-flash when the car doing 100+ goes under a gantry ahead of you.
Its not as convincing as the real thing.
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I was on a delimited two lane autobahn once, literally just a few cars behind a major smash (4 hours delay for me I recall). No hard shoulder, but the stationery traffic parted and some pretty large vehicles got down the middle.
Probably preferable to new tyres after each call-out due to nails and other rubbish you pick up on the hard shoulder!
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In theory, smart motorways should work very well, and in practice they usually do. However, they rely on all users paying attention at all times, which seems to be beyond some of them.
Of course I don’t know the actual statistics, but I’d bet real money on most “accidents” on them being the result of driver error/stupidity/aggression/incompetence rather than mechanical failure.
I suppose it falls to all of us to remember and mitigate for the fact that around half of drivers are by default, of below average competence.
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Smart Motorways. - zippy
