When did they break motorways?

chrcoluk

chrcoluk

chrcoluk

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Went on a motorway for the first time in about a decade, maybe even longer.

I have never seen so much traffic jams on one road which seemed to be caused by this new dynamic speed limit system, whenever the speed limit was 60 or higher. everyone put their foot down and traffic flowed. 50 it started to congest, and whenever it was 40, 10mph was the actual speed.

I think more than 2/3 the journey the speed limit was under 70mph. A class roads now are faster in terms of average speed?
 
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chrcoluk said:
Went on a motorway for the first time in about a decade, maybe even longer.

I have never seen so much traffic jams on one road which seemed to be caused by this new dynamic speed limit system, whenever the speed limit was 60 or higher. everyone put their foot down and traffic flowed. 50 it started to congest, and whenever it was 40, 10mph was the actual speed.

I think more than 2/3 the journey the speed limit was under 70mph. A class roads now are faster in terms of average speed?
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More people more cars and crappy regulations.
 
Yeah there was more cars than there used to be for sure, not doubting that, but as soon as the limit was low, everything would go to a crawl as if there was a accident or something, bot nope nothing, as soon as limit went to 60+ the congestion vanished immediately everytime. Seems very extreme micro management of traffic.
 
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M1 was a nightmare yesterday. It's like drivers thought the additional lane was another middle lane to chill out in.

Smart motorways work great tbh.
 
chrcoluk said:
Yeah there was more cars than there used to be for sure, not doubting that, but as soon as the limit was low, everything would go to a crawl as if there was a accident or something, bot nope nothing, as soon as limit went to 60+ the congestion vanished immediately everytime. Seems very extreme micro management of traffic.
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They slow you down to prevent stand still traffic. You said there were a lot do cars there, this usually results in standstill traffic at some point. It's because most people don't drive properly.
 
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dLockers said:
M1 was a nightmare yesterday. It's like drivers thought the additional lane was another middle lane to chill out in.

Smart motorways work great tbh.
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Thats the one, M25 was actually better, had to go to London from Leicester and back again. Yeah was slow drivers hogging the fast lanes as well, although that was a much smaller issue than the B class road speed limits.

It changed back to 40 again just as we reached J21 but luckily that was our exit.

But in all honesty, motorways worked better when drivers were trusted, even when we had people doing 90+. They designed to be fast.
 
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Yeah, the motorways are basically worse now than 10 years ago.

Traffic growth with basically 0 new infrastructure, the smart motorway/hard shoulder removal disaster, temporary limits that are often pointless so are not respected, Cars with active cruise control flashing brake lights when the decelerate by 1mph, causing phantom traffic jams far behind them. Etc.
 
Yep, when there is congestion ahead, motorways can start backing up 1 mile per minute.

The speed limit suddenly dropping to 60, 50 and 40mph is supposed to slow the traffic down enough that when they hit the current congestion, that will have cleared and the road would be flowing again.
 
chrcoluk said:
Thats the one, M25 was actually better, had to go to London from Leicester and back again. Yeah was slow drivers hogging the fast lanes as well, although that was a much smaller issue than the B class road speed limits.

It changed back to 40 again just as we reached J21 but luckily that was our exit.

But in all honesty, motorways worked better when drivers were trusted, even when we had people doing 90+. They designed to be fast.
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The problem is the volume of traffic. You wouldn't have been able to do 90+ yesterday with or without the smart motorway. You still would have had herpderps braking randomly and doing 50 in all 3 lanes.
 
Tom_ed1987 said:
Yeah, the motorways are basically worse now than 10 years ago.

Traffic growth with basically 0 new infrastructure, the smart motorway/hard shoulder removal disaster, temporary limits that are often pointless so are not respected, Cars with active cruise control flashing brake lights when the decelerate by 1mph, causing phantom traffic jams far behind them. Etc.
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Werid, I've found the smart motor speed limits to be largely observed. Pretty sure they have speed cameras on the gantries?
 
The biggest issue for me is roadworks, every other road (including motorways) seems to have roadworks on it all year round.
 
i was happy sitting at 90mph yesterday and i was following a few others in front.

what i dont get is people who think its safer to travel at 50mph on a motorway with a hgv in front and behind them.
 
sigma said:
They slow you down to prevent stand still traffic. You said there were a lot do cars there, this usually results in standstill traffic at some point. It's because most people don't drive properly.
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It seemed like it was causing the almost standstill traffic, people hit the brakes, then you get a chain reaction.

Before they existed I never had this experience on normal motorways. totally bizarre.

If you think about it motorways, is no give way, no traffic lights, so what would cause everyone to suddenly go from 70+ to 0-10mph and then suddenly speed up again, when is no obstacle in the road to make people stop? The only explanation is having to slow down for a temporary drop in speed limit.
 
chrcoluk said:
It seemed like it was causing the almost standstill traffic, people hit the brakes, then you get a chain reaction.

Before they existed I never had this experience on normal motorways. totally bizarre.

If you think about it motorways, is no give way, no traffic lights, so what would cause everyone to suddenly go from 70+ to 0-10mph and then suddenly speed up again, when is no obstacle in the road to make people stop? The only explanation is having to slow down for a temporary drop in speed limit.
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You mustn't drive much?
 
sigma said:
The biggest issue for me is roadworks, every other road (including motorways) seems to have roadworks on it all year round.
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Yep thats annoying, often changes dual carriageways to single lane, and 90% of the time is no actual works been done, just the cones in place.
 
chrcoluk said:
If you think about it motorways, is no give way, no traffic lights, so what would cause everyone to suddenly go from 70+ to 0-10mph and then suddenly speed up again, when is no obstacle in the road to make people stop? The only explanation is having to slow down for a temporary drop in speed limit.
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Well you've not driven on the motorway for a decade so I guess you've forgotten.

Things that cause sudden braking:

Lorries pulling out suddenly
Lorries overtaking lorries with a speed difference of 0.1 mph
People changing lanes suddenly
People driving too fast or too slow
People not paying attention
...
 
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