Smart Motorways | Vital Football

Smart Motorways

danvilla2

danvilla2

I’m not an expert
Guess this is sort of politics related. The thought of breaking down on the motorway with my kid is genuinely one of the few things that scares me. Pressing ahead trying to impress the rest of the world with the word “Smart” which is just a fast-driver tax.

Smart motorways ARE death-traps: Police chief says we've all been 'misled' and calls for the £6BILLION project to be abandoned after 38 motorists are killed in five years



https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...f-says-smart-motorway-projects-suspended.html
 
They are totally unsafe in there present lay out imho. No way is it reasonable to have safety refuge points every 2 miles instead of every 600 metres or so as promised.
 
They're still building the one near me, even with all this coming out about them.

It's been a 50mph limit for 2 years. It's a real nuisance, and probably all for nothing in the end.
 
sirdennis said:
They are totally unsafe in there present lay out imho. No way is it reasonable to have safety refuge points every 2 miles instead of every 600 metres or so as promised.
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And a bit of a lottery trying to pull out of the 'safety refuge points' as well I would think.
 
Having experienced many a midweek rush hour travel to VP on the M42 and M6 pre and now post introduction of Smart motorways in my opinion they work in easing of congestion and the variable speed limits keep traffic moving that would otherwise be stop/start.

However, not a single loss human life is is a price worth paying for getting people to where they need to be on time. And I fortunately haven’t had the experience like others of being stuck on the now non existent hard shoulder.

Successive governments allowing the population in our relatively small country to grow and grow with no limits has contributed to a bursting traffic and transport system. And this is the result.
 
I've never had a problem myself but 90% of drivers are thick sorry lads but which bit of use hard shoulder as lane one don't 90% of driver understand, not fecking hard is it? Big red cross if it's close, breakdown bays every mile.
Useless drivers cause an accident. Piss poor drivers who don't take progress from the day they pass the basic test
 
Villan57 said:
I've never had a problem myself but 90% of drivers are thick sorry lads but which bit of use hard shoulder as lane one don't 90% of driver understand, not fecking hard is it? Big red cross if it's close, breakdown bays every mile.
Useless drivers cause an accident. Piss poor drivers who don't take progress from the day they pass the basic test
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An issue has been when all lanes are open and someone has stopped suddenly not able to get to the next bay and those monitoring haven’t closed the lane off quickly enough to put that protection of a hard shoulder in.
 
Melon Donkey said:
An issue has been when all lanes are open and someone has stopped suddenly not able to get to the next bay and those monitoring haven’t closed the lane off quickly enough to put that protection of a hard shoulder in.
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No different to someone blowing a tyre or engine in lane 3 though is it? The sudden stop is a sudden stop regardless of the lane. Actually, it's worse in lane 3
Hell of a lot of dickheads who take no real interest in driving is the real problem.

One of my pet hates mate.

I think I read somewhere that you have about 20 odd mins on the hard shoulder before some twat ploughs into you regardless of if its smart or not
 
Melon Donkey said:
An issue has been when all lanes are open and someone has stopped suddenly not able to get to the next bay and those monitoring haven’t closed the lane off quickly enough to put that protection of a hard shoulder in.
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As a non-driver...the theory of smart motorways makes perfect sense. But the tech and investment isn't there for it to work as the theory suggests and if the investment was there it would be counterproductive on a cost effective front until it was totally controlled by AI. Reading that report with the fudge on bays, I think that those families have a bloody good case and this could well end up criminal and not just civil.

If you're in the fast lane, a tire goes, you lose power the shoulder is your only option - you can't wait for a bay even assuming you can get past that moment without another driver piling into the back of you. And obviously it's not just the drivers in the immediate areas who can see you and your hazards on, it's the ones following them etc.

Edit - just seen your post 57.

But it's magnified by having nowhere to go full stop - a driver doesn't have to be a prick to not react perfectly in a situation like that (mainly because you don't naturally expect it) and if a driver doesn't even have the option of a shoulder they are utterly fucked.

Not least from an emergency service angle, the shoulder was always their get out to get somewhere as well.

It's an ill thought out policy.
 
This isnt a smart motorway moan but a motorway one.
My absolute pet peeve. The motorways bang on about 2 shevrons distance. Great idea. I always keep to that.......
Until.......
Some twat over takes me....
And as soon as they are past me cut into my lane right ahead of me. Cutting the distance to 1/20th of a shevron.
And if we crash and i go into the back of him would be my insurance paying out.
Gets me so mad.
 
Villan57 said:
I've never had a problem myself but 90% of drivers are thick sorry lads but which bit of use hard shoulder as lane one don't 90% of driver understand, not fecking hard is it? Big red cross if it's close, breakdown bays every mile.
Useless drivers cause an accident. Piss poor drivers who don't take progress from the day they pass the basic test
Click to expand...

Smart motorways don’t really have a hard shoulder, there are relief points every mile or so. Think some taxi drivers on the M42 use it as a place to pull over. One of my earlier cars - typical French one - use to just turn itself off, couldn’t think of anything worse than on a busy motorway.

The amount of absolute fuckers who still drive in a Red Cross lane drives me mad, all to steal some minutes back. That should be 12 points if you’re caught.

Smart motorways are like VAR, great idea about too soon. When all vehicles can talk to each other and warnings sent between cars about broken down ones, with features such as enforced speed restrictors through accidents (although not normally please), they would be workable.

I do agree they have improved traffic flow, but until there is automated technology that detects broken down cars to avoid humans having to do it - because the economics suggest theres probably one person for hundreds of miles of road - it won’t work.
 
colavfc said:
This isnt a smart motorway moan but a motorway one.
My absolute pet peeve. The motorways bang on about 2 shevrons distance. Great idea. I always keep to that.......
Until.......
Some twat over takes me....
And as soon as they are past me cut into my lane right ahead of me. Cutting the distance to 1/20th of a shevron.
And if we crash and i go into the back of him would be my insurance paying out.
Gets me so mad.
Click to expand...

The chevrons is a good idea, the only ones I can think of are on the M5 around J4a but they are so far apart. For a part of the country with so much traffic if everyone kept to the chevron spacing at peak time you’d probably cause tail backs further up around Brum. We just aren’t used to driving that far apart, though no doubt they are done in a logical way maybe braking distance. I don’t think I’ve ever seen any car keep two apart, but I do think psychologically it does space you out even if not the full distance.
 
danvilla2 said:
Smart motorways don’t really have a hard shoulder, there are relief points every mile or so. Think some taxi drivers on the M42 use it as a place to pull over. One of my earlier cars - typical French one - use to just turn itself off, couldn’t think of anything worse than on a busy motorway.

The amount of absolute fuckers who still drive in a Red Cross lane drives me mad, all to steal some minutes back. That should be 12 points if you’re caught.

Smart motorways are like VAR, great idea about too soon. When all vehicles can talk to each other and warnings sent between cars about broken down ones, with features such as enforced speed restrictors through accidents (although not normally please), they would be workable.

I do agree they have improved traffic flow, but until there is automated technology that detects broken down cars to avoid humans having to do it - because the economics suggest theres probably one person for hundreds of miles of road - it won’t work.
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Yes Smart motorways are like VAR , as in both failings are by the idiots who use it.

I used the Smart motorways every day until I finished work, dumb people smart motorways are the issue.
It's actually says use hard shoulder, not would you like to use the hard shoulder, it's a command, not a fecking option.
The whole idea is to get the lorries and snails in the left lane and free up the other lanes.
Works fine if drivers were smart.

Problem is every single man thinks they are the best driver or the safest because they drive slowly. Educate the stupid drivers not shut the roads

Opened my eyes when I did my advance course with an ex-police pursuit driver as to just how asleep I was and set in my ways. He taught me to progress but in a controlled manner, to overtake everything that is holding you up, how to drive in snow, on a skid pan, on a track, how to brake at high speed etc,
Proper skills and roadcraft which most people don't have but should develop.
Hence knob heads stuck behind a pushbike, Tractor, lorry or caravan in a 2litre turbo diesel with 200ps and 450nm of torque.
 
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