Smart motorways with hard shoulders only used at busy times are "too complicated for people to use"

They'd work a lot better if the signage accurately represented what was going on with the motorway consistently. I don't even drive on them oftenand still regualrly spent time stuck at 40mph because of an accident that doesn't exist, lanes closed for no reason, unhelpful warnings and constantly changing speed limits. ... Add in signs telling you to use the hard shoulder before 200m down the road it telling you to only use that lane if you are leaving the motorway at the next junction and it's no surprise it's a complete mess.
As others have said, find a way to deal with those that can't comprehend how to use lanes on a motorway and we'll have a significantly safer and smoother flowing motorway network.
 
Mixed feelings. I feel people with cop-on shouldn't be punished because people aren't smart enough to use them. However, i'm not surprised in some ways as people still can't understand the concept of merging in turn, and still consider it "barging in", and how long has merging in turn been around for?
 
When there were lots of accidents in planes in the 40s/50s/60s that were attributed to pilot error, they did some research and found that even highly trained pilots made mistakes because the systems and processes were complicated enough that mistakes were easy to make. Systems were streamlined, simplified, check-lists introduced, etc, all to try and make it harder for people to make mistakes easily.

If you have a complex system that relies on people, there will be mistakes. You have to make it easier to do things right, especially if those people are the average person who has a poor standard of driving. If you're going to make a system that is constantly changing the rules, giving conflicting advice via signs that you can never trust are completely up to date, if you reduce the safety area massively (ie taking the hard shoulder and turning it to a small safety zone every mile), then things will go wrong, and we've seen people get killed.

More police, more training, etc will help (it's amazing the number of cars that navigate these road systems with no problems), but there will always be more risk when you ask people to operate these "driving systems" that are inherently prone to errors. That's been proven by actually running them in the real world.
 
Suspend them for now. Invest in police enforcement of lane discipline then when people have learnt to use the motorways now, opens the smart part.
 
Having used the M42 at the NEC junction for work, I can honestly say it works great to manage traffic. It was predictable every day when I travelled at around 7:30-8:00AM. It stopped a lot of the "accordion" affect, or what's also known as the traffic snake. How people are unable to vary their speed boggles the mind.

I'd happily take a mandatory refresher course for driving, if it's free. Perhaps this will increase the standard of driving? My mate had a speed awareness course said that he had learned quite a bit given that certain things are just not covered in the practical or theory tests, or the memory of them had faded a long time ago.
 
I love the one I travel on. M62 Leeds to Huddersfield. I get a whole lane all to myself whilst the idiots all stay in the other 3 lanes!
 
I think they're great. Heading South on the M6 from J12 down, the left (hard shoulder) lane is almost always clear or the fastest moving of the four because the vast majority avoid it like the plague :p
 
As has been said many, many times in this thread already, the standard of driving within the UK, and lane discipline especially, is absolutely dreadful. That's the main issue, drivers need to be massively re-educated on lane discipline and we need to punish people for sitting the the middle lane needlessly.

That said, I feel like 'smart' motorways are a lot of time, thick as ****. I've been sat on the M62 at 3am, coming back from Rochdale to Salford, been dropped down to 30, for 2 gantries, before then being released back to NSL. Was there traffic? No, was there an incident? Nope. Was there any reason at all to not be at NSL? No, no there was not.
 
NooBish AbbZ said:
As has been said many, many times in this thread already, the standard of driving within the UK, and lane discipline especially, is absolutely dreadful. That's the main issue, drivers need to be massively re-educated on lane discipline and we need to punish people for sitting the the middle lane needlessly.

That said, I feel like 'smart' motorways are a lot of time, thick as ****. I've been sat on the M62 at 3am, coming back from Rochdale to Salford, been dropped down to 30, for 2 gantries, before then being released back to NSL. Was there traffic? No, was there an incident? Nope. Was there any reason at all to not be at NSL? No, no there was not.
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The theory is that the restrictions ease congestion downstream, so that when you reach them, after being held up a little - the congestion has been prevented and cleared prior to it building up - so if they are working properly, this should always be the case - you get downstream and there's no congestion, which leads you to believe that there wasn't any. When in fact there might have been, but you are none the wiser because the system made a smart move to clear it before you got there.

Whether that is *ACTUALLY THE CASE* is anyone's guess...
 
This pretty much says it all, utter incompetence.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/20...w-wake-telegraph-investigation-driver-safety/

Telegraph said:
[Jim O’Sullivan's] company, owned by the Government, had not investigated the dangers of removing the hard shoulder, before then dodging a question about whether he would feel safer in an emergency pulling up on a live lane or on a hard shoulder. His staff had worked out that more than 26 motorists a day stop in live lanes.
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I don't like driving down the hard shoulder. Not only is there the danger of coming up against a stopped car (or worse, being unsighted by a car in front and coming up against a stopped car), the hard shoulders are usually full of crap thrown from the main motorway, and the surfaces are never as good, usually greasy, dirty, and not as well maintained. Maybe that's my bias from my motorcycling days, but I don't want to get a puncture driving over all the crap when there's a perfectly good two or three other lanes.

And getting rid of the hard shoulder (a safety zone) is always going to be a risk. Even with a hard shoulder, breaking down on the motorway and stopping on the hard shoulder can be a pretty scary and dangerous incident, without cars driving down the hard shoulder behind you at 70-80 mph on a smart motorway. There's a reason why if you have to stop on a hard shoulder, you're supposed to move yourself and your passengers off the motorway and over the barrier. Putting cars at speed on the hard shoulder is just a very increased risk, as has been shown by the many accidents that have happened.
 
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So assuming a normal smart motorway and all four lanes are full of static traffic, how do emergency services get through if there's an accident, I know let's make a lane just for that and give it a special name so they can get by:p. Feels like a step backwards Imo and was obviously a cheap and nasty way to get an extra lane.
 
NooBish AbbZ said:
As has been said many, many times in this thread already, the standard of driving within the UK, and lane discipline especially, is absolutely dreadful. That's the main issue, drivers need to be massively re-educated on lane discipline and we need to punish people for sitting the the middle lane needlessly.

That said, I feel like 'smart' motorways are a lot of time, thick as ****. I've been sat on the M62 at 3am, coming back from Rochdale to Salford, been dropped down to 30, for 2 gantries, before then being released back to NSL. Was there traffic? No, was there an incident? Nope. Was there any reason at all to not be at NSL? No, no there was not.
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Maybe someone has to switch it back, but it got to the end of their shift so they just left it :D

Anything with "smart" in the name is anything but tbh. Smart TVs, smart meters, smart phones. All the opposite of smart. And when it comes to software "smart" means choose every possible incorrect setting.
 
Nasher said:
Anything with "smart" in the name is anything but tbh. Smart TVs, smart meters, smart phones. All the opposite of smart. And when it comes to software "smart" means choose every possible incorrect setting
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Do you ever read your own posts back to yourself?
 
I had to stop in a live lane once when my car lost power in the fourth lane between M6 J13 and J12. I was trying to get to the recovery area. To do so, I had to pull across 4 lanes of traffic in a car that was coasting to a standstill. And then I stopped 10m short of the recovery area.

Scariest moment of my life.
 
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