Smart Motorways.

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busby

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Any one watch Panorama tonight spotlighting the danger of So called SMART MOTORWAYS..Could not believe that the EXPERTS advice if you breakdown in the inside lane which used to be the hard shoulder is to stay in your car..Are they F..... mad..Built for one reason ,,it's a cheap way of adding another lane and sod the safety..BUSBY.
 
Sod that...after hearing the clip where the guys on the phone when someone drives into the back I'll be getting out and going over the barrier or a couple of hundred yards past the car.
 
There is a similar program on channel 5.

I thought they suggested that if you breakdown in any of the other live lanes stay put?.

In my humble opinion, I think smart motorways are a waste of time and money.

I often drive up the M6 and watch people sit in whichever lane they choose, no keeping left.

People are not concentrating on driving, more what’s going on by text or updating Facebook on mobiles. People who don’t even know how to de-mist windows.

Then we pay almost powerless traffic officers aka buzzy bees to drive around in expensive 4x4’s. Being paid anything upwards of £40,000 a year.

If we had real traffic cops, like we used to. I am convinced motorways would be an even safer place.
 
They were always a stupid and dangerous idea. It’s amazing that they happened at all and now, £millions later, politicians are only just starting to realise what many of us have known for years. The story of that little boy killed in the back of his grandfather’s car on an elevated section of the M6 was heart breaking . There was literally no place of safety for him. Driving on ‘smart’ motorways, I’ve often wondered what I’d do if I broke down on sections with no verge or refuge. If necessary, I’d climb out of the passenger window rather than remain in the vehicle.

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Yes I watched the Panorama programme tonight and was hoping for a more sensible outcome, but alas this was not the case.
Main Points where we are all being let down IMO.
1. Existing radar technology to detect a stopped car/vehicle doesnt work.
2. Admission that a Vital Road sign has not worked or repaired for 360 days.
3. Advice to Stay in your vehicle in a live lane, do not get out! (my reaction so stay there and be hit up the rear at high speed, no I dont think so, maybe that MP should be told to sit there and try it!)
4. They didnt state that the proposed additional 300 miles of "Smart" motorway would be halted until the review was finished, and the required safety technology was in place and proven to work & be safe.
5. Admission that Smart Motorways do not work, they are potentially lethal.
6.That it has been a total waste of money creating these smart motorways, having road works in place for months/years causing more traffic congestion, when they must have known retaining a hard shoulder for breakdowns and allow emergency services was vital to access crashed vehicles with injured people quicker.
7. Not enough allowance has been made for peoples reaction times as can be seen on the videos, especially these days with so many people illegally using other devices.
8. Close all existing Smart Motorway inside lanes until such time as emergency refuge lay byes can be put in place at a max of 600Mtrs as that was what was agreed initially, not 2,5 miles.
9. Find out who was responsible for not putting these emergency refuge places every 600 mtrs as agreed in the first place and sack them!

There should be people protesting outside parliament until this problem is sorted, and those responsible for overseeing the initial build without proper safety cameras/radar in place sacked also, If there were not ready or safe why open them?
LES
 
TinaL said:
Yes I watched the Panorama programme tonight and was hoping for a more sensible outcome, but alas this was not the case.
Main Points where we are all being let down IMO.
1. Existing radar technology to detect a stopped car/vehicle doesnt work.
2. Admission that a Vital Road sign has not worked or repaired for 360 days.
3. Advice to Stay in your vehicle in a live lane, do not get out! (my reaction so stay there and be hit up the rear at high speed, no I dont think so, maybe that MP should be told to sit there and try it!)
4. They didnt state that the proposed additional 300 miles of "Smart" motorway would be halted until the review was finished, and the required safety technology was in place and proven to work & be safe.
5. Admission that Smart Motorways do not work, they are potentially lethal.
6.That it has been a total waste of money creating these smart motorways, having road works in place for months/years causing more traffic congestion, when they must have known retaining a hard shoulder for breakdowns and allow emergency services was vital to access crashed vehicles with injured people quicker.
7. Not enough allowance has been made for peoples reaction times as can be seen on the videos, especially these days with so many people illegally using other devices.
8. Close all existing Smart Motorway inside lanes until such time as emergency refuge lay byes can be put in place at a max of 600Mtrs as that was what was agreed initially, not 2,5 miles.
9. Find out who was responsible for not putting these emergency refuge places every 600 mtrs as agreed in the first place and sack them!

There should be people protesting outside parliament until this problem is sorted, and those responsible for overseeing the initial build without proper safety cameras/radar in place sacked also, If there were not ready or safe why open them?
LES
Click to expand...
Grant Snapps inferred that lay byes would be a min apart,,that's a mile,,four times too far in my opinion but of course these Westminster EXPERTS would not seek the advice of people who actually use these roads..All down to not spending money..As a country we have all ways skimped on infrastructure..BUSBY.
 
Its very similar to HS2, how can they tell us its still in discussion, waiting for approval, when they have already spent billions and started massive infrastructure ground works in London & Birmingham as we speak.
So am I missing something, who gave the go ahead to start if it has not been officially approved already?
LES
 
The most dangerous place on a traditional motorway is the hard shoulder( how many recovery persons been killed over the years attending breakdowns) and advice was exit vehicle by near side doors and climb armco to the relative safety... Now however they saying stay put in vehicle in live lane and put your faith in technology that don't work to prevent a 44ton truck joining you in back seat..... DONT THINK SO!!!!!
 
I think the advice regarding staying in the vehicle was for breakdown in any live lane OTHER than lane 1. If you breakdown in lane 1, what was the hard shoulder, you should exit via the passenger door and get over the Armco barrier. At least that’s how I understood it.
Of course on many modern cars it’s extremely difficult to get over from the drivers seat across all the ‘gubbins' and consoles in the middle.

The thing that always worries me the most is driving in lane 1 and suddenly coming across a stationary vehicle in front and not being able to pull out because of heavy and fast moving traffic.
For many months we’ve had to put up with roadworks and speed limits on the M20 to turn it into a ‘smart' motorway. Will it all be for nowt?

Richard.
 
Clarky said:
For many months we’ve had to put up with roadworks and speed limits on the M20 to turn it into a ‘smart' motorway. Will it all be for nowt?

Richard.
Click to expand...

That extra lane is for those queueing lorries heading to Dover after Friday :whistle2:
The London bound lane is for them to take their break after stop-stop queueing at the docks.
 
When they were building / modifying the M1 near us into a smart motorway they had signs up relating to breakdowns

over 50% of recovered vehicles had run out of fuel ?

I do know locally the police are prosecuting people running out of fuel and recently passing a service area

I have mixed feelings about the no hard shoulder, maybe in the dark when it is generally quieter on the roads they should restrict back to three lanes keeping a safer lane.

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We experienced the thrills of breaking down on a Smart motorway a while back.
The diesel fuel pump gave up the ghost on the Vauxhall Frontera I had as we approached the Dunstable junction of the M1.
As we were on the hard shoulder, no live lane as it is a "Smart motorway" where we were, so I put the hazards on, tried to restart the Frontera and Yvette rang 999 to the police and the highways agency to let then know we had broken down while I tried again restart the Frontera.
Give them their due, they acted fairly fast and the gantry signage in front of us for our lane changed to 50 mph !!! WTF, a few seconds later the screech of locked up tyres and the view in the rear view mirror was a 40 tonner all wheel locker with smoke pouring off of them getting bigger in the rear view mirror. He ended up stopping so close that he did not have the space to steer around us and he could not reverse back as another two attics had done the same behind him.
Another frantic 999 call and after few minutes a red "X" flashed up on the gantry above our lane.
I used first gear and the starter motor to move forward enough for the lorries to escape and we jumped over the crash barrier to our safe haven to wait for recovery.

This was our safe haven. :Eeek:

1580204315259.png
 
Two on Tour said:
We experienced the thrills of breaking down on a Smart motorway a while back.
The diesel fuel pump gave up the ghost on the Vauxhall Frontera I had as we approached the Dunstable junction of the M1.
As we were on the hard shoulder, no live lane as it is a "Smart motorway" where we were, so I put the hazards on, tried to restart the Frontera and Yvette rang 999 to the police and the highways agency to let then know we had broken down while I tried again restart the Frontera.
Give them their due, they acted fairly fast and the gantry signage in front of us for our lane changed to 50 mph !!! WTF, a few seconds later the screech of locked up tyres and the view in the rear view mirror was a 40 tonner all wheel locker with smoke pouring off of them getting bigger in the rear view mirror. He ended up stopping so close that he did not have the space to steer around us and he could not reverse back as another two attics had done the same behind him.
Another frantic 999 call and after few minutes a red "X" flashed up on the gantry above our lane.
I used first gear and the starter motor to move forward enough for the lorries to escape and we jumped over the crash barrier to our safe haven to wait for recovery.

This was our safe haven. :Eeek:

View attachment 359545
Click to expand...
Very lucky escape..BUSBY.
 
If everyone left a sensible braking distance, then really shouldn't be an issue, but unfortunately we have smart motorways and dumb drivers.
Also is a smart motorway really any different to a 2/3 lane dual carriageway without a hard shoulder, I am from east Anglia, and we don't have motorways, smart it otherwise, come to think about it, we have very few dual carriageway.

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Nixdorfer said:
Sod that...after hearing the clip where the guys on the phone when someone drives into the back I'll be getting out and going over the barrier or a couple of hundred yards past the car.
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That clip on Radio 2 was very scary, horrifying even, thing was where do you escape to, I think he was in an outside lane, so dangerous to get out the drivers side as cars a passing by at speed and no were to go from the passenger side, Smart motorways are very dangerous, in the same program near misses before Smart motorways was in the 40's whilst after was in the 1000's.
 
Aside from the risks of “smart” motorways, there are the miles and mile of running at a reduced speed for no obvious reason, “incident” is the favourite phrase.... it seems to me we have invested heavily in cameras to cover the motorways, but no one seems to watch? Maybe they are short staffed... My conclusion is that the Highways Agency management are incompetent, and the Agency in it’s current form should be disbanded and the staff and technology handed over to a national traffic police service, with road building and maintenance reverting to direct oversight in a Department of Transport.
 
TinaL said:
with so many people illegally using other devices.
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And in this day and age using, more-or-less, legal devices.

Almost the first thing they now advertise in a car is it's many computer screens and controls. You are not a driver if you are not constantly adjusting your suspension and tuning your engine to suit your conditions. Way too much distraction.
 
robnchris said:
That clip on Radio 2 was very scary, horrifying even, thing was where do you escape to, I think he was in an outside lane, so dangerous to get out the drivers side as cars a passing by at speed and no were to go from the passenger side, Smart motorways are very dangerous, in the same program near misses before Smart motorways was in the 40's whilst after was in the 1000's.
Click to expand...
Not sure what the "near misses" are or how they are measured? I assume the massive jump could in some way be to better monitoring and recording now, previously what wasn't seen wasn't recorded?
 
Wh05apk said:
If everyone left a sensible braking distance, then really shouldn't be an issue, but unfortunately we have smart motorways and dumb drivers.
Also is a smart motorway really any different to a 2/3 lane dual carriageway without a hard shoulder, I am from east Anglia, and we don't have motorways, smart it otherwise, come to think about it, we have very few dual carriageway.
Click to expand...
Difference is volumn of traffic and speed.BUSBY.

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RBQC, there is an option, de-select motorways :giggle:
 
Just think, right now there are thousands of vehicles using Smart Motorways, despite evidence from last nights Panorama Programme.
The AA cheif said it was too dangerous to send his patrols out to attend a breakdown, without adequate police involvement to aid in the recovery of a vehicle.
The tory MP that is carrying out a safety review, also knows that they are not safe, inadequate safety cameras, not enough emergency escape lay byes, and then had to advise us to stay inside the vehicle if we break down and cannot get over to lane 1, which is still not safe by any stretch of the imagination.
He was then informed of sections of motorways that did not have adequate monitoring and that it has taken 17 minutes for the broken down vehicle to be discovered, then a further 17 minutes before any rescue attempt was made! well that's 34 Minutes of being stuck in a live lane inside your vehicle. maybe with 4/5 people inside it.
What are our chances of not being hit up the rear, severely injured, even killed?Too High I would say
Yet they have not shut down lane 1, while a sensible review is carried out, or placed a deadline date for additional rescue lay byes, or sufficient radar/camera monitoring to be installed and tested.
They have not put a halt on developing a further 300 miles on "Smart" motorways
They know how deadly the current risks are, yet they do nothing to stop further people from losing their lives, increasing the current death toll from 38, to how many?

The whole lot of them should be sued for negligence in knowing they were causing injury and death, by not providing adequate safety standards, and allowing the uninformed public to use them naively on the assumption that there was adequate safety monitoring and procedures in place, when they were opened for use.

Yet!, they will stop and fine me and all the rest of us for....not wearing a seatbelt in a vehicle as we might injure ourselves.:doh:
I always wear my seatbelt and ensure all passengers do also, but they are not going to save us from being crushed by a 44 tonne HGV on a Smart Motorway are they?
Nuff said, bloody stupid allowing this to continue, close lane 1 today!
LES
 
Flook said:
RBQC, there is an option, de-select motorways :giggle:
Click to expand...
Indeed there is, but regular motorways are not the concern, only the allegedly ‘Smart’ sections which you may or may not wish to avoid. ;)

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