Smart Motorways

That panorama mentioned above is an interesting watch

The smart motorways were based on a small trial and expected a certain level of investment to take place, surprise surprise it didnt happen

The ex transport minister who approved them said he wouldnt now, says it all really
 
the opponents on r4today this morning, familiar with the panorama programme, said,
The accident statistics on the smart motorways appears to be the missing data, to condemn them,
the deaths do not appear to be that dissimilar to regular motorways, but, the badly injured and near misses, are what should be recorded/released.

Being mercenary, I thought cost to the economy of 1 road death is 1Million, so the equation is whether economic gains of deploying them outweigh this
 
The average speed cameras and Variable speed limit part of the Smart motorway are not such an issue, it is the loss of the hard shoulder so that the costs of creating an extra lane are cheaper that is the problem. You can blame the drivers all you want (and yes, it may be true) but that does not change the fact it is a problem. Lane closures should still be a thing though when there are accidents for example, but then that is what CCTV and cameras (to fine those who ignore the lane closed signs) should be for.
 
Boss of the AA said they will be obsolete in a decade, because you can't tow electric cars (so they need the hard shoulder to be retrieved safely), and intelligent electric cars will have trouble without safe zones (for instance, where will they pull over if a driver falls asleep or has a medical emergency).
 
They don't think that far ahead.

Another problem is what do people do if the "smart" system goes down/crashes with the hard shoulder open? They won't be able to warn people to get out of it.

You can't have a road system where the rules are constantly changing and expect it to be safe.
 
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I have driven many tens of thousands of miles on older motorways and less on smart ones since 1970. Over the years I have had tyre blowouts from rubbish strewn across lanes, mainly from pickups and flat beds. Two incidents of people driving into the back of me in queued traffic, all on older motorways with hard shoulders but at least I could choose where and how to get off the trafficked lanes. I aso changed tyres on a hard shoulder, I would hate to have to do any of that on a live lane.
 
Last one I used had people in and out of the hard shoulder every other gantry for no obvious reason. You could tell people just gave up playing that game after a few times and just sat in lane 2 instead.
 
I also changed tyres on a hard shoulder
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I've never had to changed a tyre on a motorway, or other, but would not be doing this in a live lane ..... Decamp asap, and use the warning triangle, gilet jaune, on any motorway ... hopefully the motorway has good mobile coverage, or 5g.

Are most blow-outs down to poor tyre condition, exacerbated by extended high temp rolling, or,
debris, you should have spotted.
 
I came across a tanker totally stopped in the middle lane on a smart motorway with traffic doing 70mph+ in all lanes. At least the "smart" motorway gave a brief warning with the X above the lane, even if numpties chose to ignore it. A non-smart motorway would have had no warning what-so-ever.

I don't mind the variable speed limit, I agree that it works reasonably well in keeping traffic moving. But I do think hard shoulders are an extra "safety feature" that we should have - arguably on dual carriageways also.

It should also be very strict on X marked lanes. Heavy fines and points if driving in an X lane.
 
jpaul said:
I've never had to changed a tyre on a motorway, or other, but would not be doing this in a live lane ..... Decamp asap, and use the warning triangle, gilet jaune, on any motorway ... hopefully the motorway has good mobile coverage, or 5g.

Are most blow-outs down to poor tyre condition, exacerbated by extended high temp rolling, or,
debris, you should have spotted.
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Pothole impacts! :eek: :mad:

I haven't done long Motorway/Trunk road travel for some years but I have done a 300 and 400 mile trip this week (Hence my observations in my OP) and I am going to be doing it a lot over the next couple of months.

The condition of Many motorways/DCs is truly dreadful, particularly in L1 (I can now really understand why many people choose to be MLM, it isn't actually "moronic" at all!)

Potholes, even whole slabs of tarmac missing. Hit the edge of a 2" deep hole at 60 and there is a good chance of damaging the tyre (or even cracking a wheel If you have one of these 45 profile "Rubber Band" tyres that many Luxury/Performance modern cars seem to have these days) And it isn't always possible to avoid them either.

The impacts of hitting these is bone shattering, Admittedly, my vehicles are heavy duty rather than performance so the tyre pressures are at the high end. So I accept that I will feel it more, but even so... :((I hope that, like with a Bicycle, high pressures will offer some protection against tyre damage from these impacts)

But for those that do a lot of L1 motorway driving. I would expect that this is likely to be a major factor in generating random tyre faults that either cause an instant breakdown or a random and unpredictable failure at some point in the future.

:(
 
I drive down the M42 quite often, the hard shoulder is indicated to use for the next junction only which might be 2-3 miles further on, so you find yourself driving along at 65-70 and suddenly someone undertakes you and shoots past on the HS doing 75 or whatever and you think to yourself what happens if I suddenly have an engine problem,a tyre blow out or whatever and need to coast onto the HS?
 
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robj20 said:
I didn't say I've used lots. Just that the newest ones ie just finished all have hard shoulders.
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No they don't, they have permanent all lane running without hard shoulders. Look at the M5 north of Worcester for example which is one of the most recently completed.
 
[TW]Fox said:
No they don't, they have permanent all lane running without hard shoulders. Look at the M5 north of Worcester for example which is one of the most recently completed.
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Please read my posts properly, I really don't get how you can say I'm wrong.
The newest ones i have driven all have hard shoulders. If you still can't understand that I suggest you drive around the M60.
 
Just looked on streetview, what a pointless smart motorway :confused: all they seem to have done is add variable speed limits to a standard stretch of motorway with zero capacity increase :confused:
 
[TW]Fox said:
Just looked on streetview, what a pointless smart motorway :confused: all they seem to have done is add variable speed limits to a standard stretch of motorway with zero capacity increase :confused:
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There are different types of smart motorway...All lane running, Controlled and Dynamic. Rob is talking about a controlled section, where the hard shoulder is retained. It's really just adding the variable limit. Arguably though, if people actually took notice of those limits and abided by them, then they would help smooth traffic flow, by slowing down traffic well in advance of reported congestion.

In reality, most people will see the limits flash up, but if they can't actually see a reason, and there's no camera, they'll ignore them.

https://www.rac.co.uk/drive/advice/driving-advice/smart-motorways/
 
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