Deleted User 298457
Deleted User 298457
Sounds like motorways as a whole may be too much serious business for you.
Smart Motorways
- Thread starter Orionaut
- Start date
Not at all, I'm a very confident driver / rider. Having used the roads for numerous years and watching others driving habits breaking down on a smart motorway wouldn't be a situation I enjoy at all. I've stopped on the hard shoulder several times for numerous reasons and cars coming past at 70mph in close proximity isn't something to be sniffed at. Throw in tech toys, phones, screens in cars, other distractions like eating / reading bla bla. At least on being on a hard shoulder the chances of being rear ended by one of the muppets driving using / doing the former is greatly reduced compared to what it'll be on a smart motorway.
I wouldn't be cutting seat belts unless I had to but the child seat I have for the 1yo isn't isofix so sometimes can take a bit of faffing to get undone quickly. It's just a case of 'being prepared' good old scout moto!
I just evaluate risks. If you were looking at a normal motorway design and a smart motorway design which do you think would cause the bigger risk in the event of a break down scenario? That's all I'm getting at. Someone somewhere has made the call that having an extra lane on the motorway is more important than the risk prevented by someone breaking down and being stuck in a live lane.
The event may never end up happening to me, I could be thinking about these things for no reason but you just never know. I fly gliders for a hobby and it's extremely rare to ever have a bird strike whilst flying a glider yet what did I have a few weeks ago. That event highlighted a few things to me that I won't bore you all with but point is it can happen to you. I know glider pilots with thousands of hours flying and no bird strike, I've just over 100 P1 and I had one, with a Buzzard or Red Kite, poor thing
Sounds like someone who needs Volcano insurance as well.
I don't mind smart motorways the ones round here seen to have had nothing but a positive outcome, I mean on average im getting home much faster since they were finished.
Deleted User 298457
Deleted User 298457
Seems the rare bird killer also likes to save a few quid and bought a non-isofix car seat.
This creates some sound assumptions around his concern. Likely cheap'ed out on maintenance and pattern parts?
Whatever with the personal attacks 
crack on!!
I'm just saying being a single adult in a car along with two young children and breaking down on a smart motorway would not be a fun experience, compared to if there were a hard shoulder. If you think a smart motorway comes with zero risk well, great for you both.
Neither Buzzard or Red Kite is a rare bird though, had it been a White Tailed Sea Eagle I'd have given you that one
crack on!!I'm just saying being a single adult in a car along with two young children and breaking down on a smart motorway would not be a fun experience, compared to if there were a hard shoulder. If you think a smart motorway comes with zero risk well, great for you both.
Neither Buzzard or Red Kite is a rare bird though, had it been a White Tailed Sea Eagle I'd have given you that one
Remoulds are common on HGV’s but illegal to be used on the steering axle.
As someone far from adverse to motorways or driving in general I wholly agree with you.
“Smart” motorways are an extremely dangerous and poorly conceived idea as anyone who’s seen a vehicle collision caused by the lack of a hard shoulder on a motorway would - I hope - agree.
I’ve seen quite a few of these incidents which arguably would not have happened had the carriageway had a hard shoulder, unfortunately two of them were fatal.
Smart motorways were borne because Highways England needed a cheap & quick way to expand the road space & some idiot thought "hang on there's a full lane that isn't used". Perhaps because it was called the hard shoulder and not what it should have been called, the emergency lane.
I have no doubt that safety aspects were massively downplayed which is why we have had these appalling fatals.
In regards to this it has been found that many of the emergency areas, which were originally planned and approved to be 0.75miles apart unless not suitable with the caveat of not more than 1 mile if that was the case, were in fact in excess of this approved build. The worst one found was on the M6 where construction had begun but only had 4 emergency areas in a 10 mile stretch on the northbound carriageway.
So the problem is even worse, H.E are getting plans approved that don't meet the minimum standards
Thread bump - far from a clear cut case but just how much more evidence does it need that smart motorways, even when working as intended, are not a good fit (putting it mildly) for the UK:
www.bbc.co.uk
In general though I'm seeing more and more people not paying attention as they drive, not just momentary lapses or being lulled by driving the same route time and time again but blatant irresponsible doing other activities taking attention away from the road which anyone with half a brain would realise substantially increases the risk and so on for other drivers.
Driver crushed by his own van after stopping on smart motorway
Derek Jacobs' van was hit by another driver, who had "not been paying attention", an inquest hears.
www.bbc.co.uk
In general though I'm seeing more and more people not paying attention as they drive, not just momentary lapses or being lulled by driving the same route time and time again but blatant irresponsible doing other activities taking attention away from the road which anyone with half a brain would realise substantially increases the risk and so on for other drivers.
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I get it, but to play devils advocate, had that collision occurred on the A14 or the A1 which are as busy as your average motorway, we wouldn’t be associating it with the lack of hard shoulders.
People are going to people at the end of the day. You literally see it within minutes every time you get in a car.
People are going to people at the end of the day. You literally see it within minutes every time you get in a car.
It's not the motorways it's the incompetent idiots driving that's the issue, I'll keep saying it, the motorways are only as smart as the people using them which at the moment appears to be retarded, I see it daily where people aren't paying any kind of attention, hell even when a lanes closed due to stranded vehicle there are people (and not just lorry drivers either) flying up the closed lane to undercut the traffic that is moving slower than the normal speed due to lane closure
Thread bump - far from a clear cut case but just how much more evidence does it need that smart motorways, even when working as intended, are not a good fit (putting it mildly) for the UK:
Driver crushed by his own van after stopping on smart motorway
Derek Jacobs' van was hit by another driver, who had "not been paying attention", an inquest hears.
This section has since been upgraded with SVD, so would now automatically identify the stopped van and allow much quicker reaction of warnings, lane closures etc. - you'll never account for incompetent drivers though whether it's a normal motorway, a smart motorway, an A road or an NSL country lane.
Thread bump - far from a clear cut case but just how much more evidence does it need that smart motorways, even when working as intended, are not a good fit (putting it mildly) for the UK:
Driver crushed by his own van after stopping on smart motorway
Derek Jacobs' van was hit by another driver, who had "not been paying attention", an inquest hears.
In general though I'm seeing more and more people not paying attention as they drive, not just momentary lapses or being lulled by driving the same route time and time again but blatant irresponsible doing other activities taking attention away from the road which anyone with half a brain would realise substantially increases the risk and so on for other drivers.
..
Mrs Scripps had been driving between 53mph and 54mph, and Sgt Moorcroft did various calculations which showed she should have had time to stop before hitting the van.
"Even with a slow reaction time she would have been able to stop," said Sgt Moorcroft.
"We have ascertained she would have had a view of the stricken VW van some 5.2 seconds prior to impact.
supposedly only 5s for view of van before crash @50mph, was there fog, or the motorway has a tight bend.
Or simply there was other traffic on the road as set out in the article.
5 seconds at 50MPH = 110 meters, not exactly a short distance.
LOL and causal thinking awareness , from when you see other vehicles moving out of the way of something obscured ahead isn't included in the definition of a competent driver
Of course it isn’t but you asked why they ‘only’ had 5 seconds view and pontificated as to why while not considering other traffic as the obvious explanation given it’s the M1 motorway and not a quiet country lane.
If it was foggy, they would have said given they had the whole thing on CCTV
If it was foggy, they would have said given they had the whole thing on CCTV
They still seem to be a random speed limit generator. Why is it 40/50mph in the middle of the night for random stretches with no traffic around...
They have made a thing and now they need to constantly mess with it to justify its existence.
I can get places quick on A roads than the M1 most of the time since they introduced them.
They have made a thing and now they need to constantly mess with it to justify its existence.
I can get places quick on A roads than the M1 most of the time since they introduced them.
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And that why you can't trust them to work smart motorways safely. You can't make systems that rely on the average joe paying attention and doing the right thing, and then be surprised that the usual lack of ability makes that system break. You have to make systems easy, simple, consistent and reliable for the average (ie usually gormless) person to operate. Smart motorways are a step too far to be safe for those people and the rest of us unlucky enough to be using or broken down on them.
It's definitely worrying that the idea of not driving in a lane with a big red X showing on the signs or not crashing into something stationary you can see over 100m down the road is considered to be a 'complicated' aspect of driving, or confusing to understand.
I found it amusing the last couple of times I did the M25 or around there - 50MPH limit up and most traffic actually adhering to it - quite chill with everyone spaced out then you'd get these Porsches etc. come flying up weaving in and out of the sedate lines of traffic at 90MPH - probably rich foreign kids or similar who'll not face the consequences.