Forum Topic

So called Smart motorways

I had the misfortune to drive along the M4 out of London yesterday and work is in progress (if you can ever call these smart motorways progress) leading up to Heathrow and the M25. Being a major commuter route this section of the motorway must be one of the busiest and most used, besides its proximity to the airport and the Orbital turnoff.I have to say I find the concept absolutely terrifying that I could break down and be stuck in a lane with traffic all around and nowhere to pull in to for safety.Whoever instigated them is a lunatic. How do we stop and change them back to hard shoulders now? Any suggestions please.

Lucille Grant ● 2469d47 Comments

Hello Lucille,I totally agree, it is total madness!!!On the M1 there have been a few deaths due to people stopping on the hard shoulder....  Department for Transport?  Writing to our MP could also help and involving the Council would also be a good start.

Ivonne Holliday ● 2469d

Deathtraps.  Nick Ferrari on LBC has been ranting about them for months.  He has spoken Grant Shapps several times about the dangers the pose and he's running a campaign to have them abolished.

Sue Hammond ● 2469d

Lucille,Another idea is Highways England?

Ivonne Holliday ● 2469d

There is a petition, which I have signed. Here's the link.  http://chng.it/nhsHyCDnqV

Judy Allen ● 2469d

Thank you Judy.I have just signed the petition, shared in FB, written to Fleur Anderson, the Council and am looking into addresses to write to the Department of Transport.  Highways England come under the DoT.

Ivonne Holliday ● 2469d

Petition signed.

Sue Hammond ● 2469d

Thanks everyone. All very useful.

Lucille Grant ● 2468d

Signed

Michael Ixer ● 2468d

These motorways are dangerous.  I understand that they were originally designed with areas where you can pull over every so often but in the event these became so far very far apart that they are practically non existent.  A schoolfriend's brother became disabled after his car broke down on the motorway and it was driven into from  behind when it was on the hard shoulder.  That was dangerous enough as it was.Radio 4's You and Yours have had several programmes with items on this.  You can look them up.

Philippa Bond ● 2468d

Not a good idea the smart motorways for electric cars.

Barbara Stevens ● 2468d

I’ve had quite a bit of recent experience over the past few months visiting my father near M1junction 14 so have driven through the m4 “improvements” and the m1 “smart” motorway most weekends.Agree with the consensus here - whilst now more used to them, I still find them unsettling and can easily understand that they could cause significant issues and the deaths that have been advertised.From what I understand the original intention was to have frequent lay-bys for broken cars to pull into but this has not been implemented properly.I’m glad to hear there is a backlash and a new review - I think the highways agency should concentrate its efforts on widening motorways where needed or providing better motorway flow information and well kept roads.  Sadly not untypical of the bureaucratic mindset in this country.

Mike Warman ● 2468d

The decision to proceed seems to be based on the M42 trial where there safe lay-bys every few hundred yards and a good safety record. The newer ones had lay-bys over a mile apart, if not more, which is a very different proposition.  I would hate to break down on one of them. I believe an urgent review is now underway following the publicity about some horrific accidents. Sadly it has taken deaths and injuries to prompt a rethink.

Jonathan Callaway ● 2468d

The decision to proceed seems to be based on the M42 trial where there safe lay-bys every few hundred yards and a good safety record. The newer ones had lay-bys over a mile apart, if not more, which is a very different proposition.  I would hate to break down on one of them. I believe an urgent review is now underway following the publicity about some horrific accidents. Sadly it has taken deaths and injuries to prompt a rethink.

Jonathan Callaway ● 2468d

The decision to proceed seems to be based on the M42 trial where there safe lay-bys every few hundred yards and a good safety record. The newer ones had lay-bys over a mile apart, if not more, which is a very different proposition.  I would hate to break down on one of them. I believe an urgent review is now underway following the publicity about some horrific accidents. Sadly it has taken deaths and injuries to prompt a rethink.

Jonathan Callaway ● 2468d

The decision to proceed seems to be based on the M42 trial where there safe lay-bys every few hundred yards and a good safety record. The newer ones had lay-bys over a mile apart, if not more, which is a very different proposition.  I would hate to break down on one of them. I believe an urgent review is now underway following the publicity about some horrific accidents. Sadly it has taken deaths and injuries to prompt a rethink.

Jonathan Callaway ● 2468d

The decision to proceed seems to be based on the M42 trial where there safe lay-bys every few hundred yards and a good safety record. The newer ones had lay-bys over a mile apart, if not more, which is a very different proposition.  I would hate to break down on one of them. I believe an urgent review is now underway following the publicity about some horrific accidents. Sadly it has taken deaths and injuries to prompt a rethink.

Jonathan Callaway ● 2468d

Sorry about the multiple postings. I blame the website though it could be a user problem......

Jonathan Callaway ● 2468d

They are not brilliant for ANY cars.  Everybody should check how much fuel/charge they have before they travel.  Petrol stations are installing EV charging points.  The distances EVs can travel without recharging is growing.  A lot less can go wrong with them than a petrol or diesel car.

Philippa Bond ● 2468d

Or being in an EV in a blizzard trying to keep warm, then your battery has run down and no way of recharging.

Barbara Stevens ● 2465d

Good discussion. Having travelled on M3 recently, rotten journey. Really feel that these motorways need to be returned to previous state.  I also noted a number of idiot drivers undertaking too.. We can continue building HS2 at an eye watering cost or we can look at a decent joined up transport system, safer roads etc... I just despair.Suffice to say attempting to avoid M4 and M3, which is not easy. Thanks for raising this issue, also have signed petitiontoo.

Lyn Stevens ● 2464d

"idiot drivers undertaking"Perhaps you should have been driving in a lane to your left as prescribed in the highway code. Centre-lane or right-hand lane hogging causes this all the time. If drivers kept to the appropriate lane instead of believing in a 'slow' lane an 'fast' lane everyone would travel more quickly.

Freddie Francis ● 2464d

Unless, of course, they are overtaking on the hard shoulder.

Ivonne Holliday ● 2463d

Ah, well. Then there’s cause to complain. Somehow I don’t think that’s what’s being alluded to.

Freddie Francis ● 2463d

I also failed to consider it could have been real ‘undertakers’ just going about their daily business and the person complaining just had a thing about their chosen career.

Freddie Francis ● 2463d

Perhaps you should try attempting to move over to the appropriate lane but having a car moving up fast on hard shoulder ...one thing I'm not is a middle lane hogger..sorry missed the point about a chosen career?care to explain?

Lyn Stevens ● 2463d

Have you ever driven on a motorway?

Lyn Stevens ● 2463d

Sorry Freddie.  One of the ideas of smart motorways is to allow people to drive on the hard shoulder in order to allow traffic to move faster.What horrifies me is that people driving in smart motorways may break down on the middle lane and must remain in their cars till help arrives.....There is a petition going round written by a lorry driver.  His wife drives a three-door car and has with her two children.  According to the smart motorways rules, she must try to take one child out of the car (with speeding cars around her while having an open door), run across the lanes to take him/her to safety, leaving them there and then returning to the stranded car, avoiding traffic, to rescue  the second child.Does this make any sense to you?

Ivonne Holliday ● 2463d

The lack of a hard shoulder seems counter to the safety inherent in the original design of motorway and I don't think their removal is something technology on "smart" motorways can mitigate for fully so I'd like to see smart motorways banned. However, I think driving styles may have to adapt to road and traffic conditions; in the US undertaking is legal and seems to work well on slow, wide highways with a high density of traffic while on fast 2,3 lane roads with low or medium density traffic the the traditional UK "overtake on the right (in the UK!) rule" is safer. In Germany people don't lane hog when they've a BMW tailgating them at 100 mph in the outside lane - or wherever the kph equivalent is! 

Michael Ixer ● 2463d

Undertaking is the norm in France too although I'm not sure if it's legal or not. Certainly stops lane hogging if you know someone is likely to undercut you!

Lucille Grant ● 2463d

Planning my next journey to South Wales in the summer I'll be using the A4 as far as the M25 before joining the M4 - a longer and more time consuming route but less dangerous!

Lucille Grant ● 2463d

Nothing like a bit of condescension. I do know what smart motorways are for thank you very much. My comments were directed at the lady who said she was being 'undertaken'. The assumption being that she was traveling in an inappropriate lane and should have been in a lane to the left - i.e. I was criticising the lack of discipline I see all the time on the motorways. Not keeping left is the rule but idiots seem to regard this as being unsafe so sit in the middle lane. I'm not making any direct connection to the use of the hard shoulder. Do I make any sense to you?

Freddie Francis ● 2463d

Hello Freddie,I am sorry you felt I was being condescending because that certainly was not the intention.  Perhaps my comment was not clear enough.  The lady could have been driving on the left lane and being undertaken by somebody on the hard shoulder.But I agree with you, the middle lane hoarders really drive me despair!But it has happened to me that the motorway was at a standstill and the only lane moving was the left lane because there was an exit a few yards ahead.

Ivonne Holliday ● 2463d

@Ivonne. That's ok, see rule 268 of the Highway Code: if your lane's moving faster than the one to thee right you should keep up with the traffic. Nothing wrong in re-reading the 'Code from time-to-time as it is updated at intervals ...

Michael Ixer ● 2463d

Here's the link ...https://www.gov.uk/guidance/the-highway-code/motorways-253-to-273

Michael Ixer ● 2463d

Thank you Michael and I agree that it is legal to keep moving if your lane is moving.  And thank you for the link as revisiting the code is always helpful.

Ivonne Holliday ● 2463d

It is pretty scary when you see two cars trying to get into the same space - one from the left and the other from the right.  It gets rather like Grand Theft Auto out there.  There are also a lot of drivers who don't seem to know the length of their own car not to mention the ones who are travelling way too fast for poor conditions - so many drive without lights when it is raining and visibility is poor.

Philippa Bond ● 2463d

Phili

Michael Ixer ● 2463d

Philippa. That might be because it's not their own car? Many people these days use car clubs or some sort of car pool, so they may be fa!iluarising themselves with it? Also the design of modern cars doesn't always help: they might give greater visibility but when I was driving my father's Ford Anglia 105E or my Triumph Herald I knew the exact position the rear corners :-)

Michael Ixer ● 2463d

Sorry about the "Phili" message, Felicity (our cat) decided to help me press submit ...

Michael Ixer ● 2463d

Mike, I thought that must have been your covfefe moment!

Jonathan Callaway ● 2463d

Mike, I thought that must have been your covfefe moment!

Jonathan Callaway ● 2463d

Jonathan, you see to be repeating yourself again :-) One of our cat's (who's now in that great cat basket in the sky) once managed to jump on my wife's keyboard while she was ordering some cat food on line and changed the quantity from 5 to 50 cartons ... I'm still not convinced that was just chance ...

Michael Ixer ● 2463d

Mike My first car was a Triumph Herald in British Racing Green. Lovely car!

Lucille Grant ● 2463d

Lucille, yes, great cars :-)

Michael Ixer ● 2463d

As I said, I wrote to Fleur Anderson as well as the councillors in my ward, including the Deputy Mayor.Needless to say, not a peep from any of them.  Very sad.

Ivonne Holliday ● 2461d

Oops, just noticed a "greengrocer apostrophe" in there! Definitely the cat's fault ...

Michael Ixer ● 2461d

Seconded.

Steve Poole ● 2460d