Smart Motorways

[aintforever]

You seem to have missed the part of the story that stated "within seconds of calling for help, the man said ***** and there was a LOUD crash". Surely that description of a motorway suggests it was running normally - there wouldn't be a 'loud crash' in stationary traffic and unless his car suddenly stopped like no other car, ever (without hitting something very large), then there was ample opportunity to pull over.

 

 

 

Where does it state the same amount of traffic?

 

There are circumstances where you could end up stationary in the middle lane but it’s irrelevant anyway, the guy in this case was on the left hand lane when he was hit by a truck.

[Chez]

It feels like the whole thing is one huge con. There are some firms making a lot of money doing construction work here, but they don't seem to have been installing anything 'smart' except for on the M25. If I am being cynical, the implementation of smart motorways seems like a way for contractors to win some massive contracts to 'upgrade' motorways. I am guessing the central reservations probably did need to be replaced, but that seems to be where the real time/cost/work is being done rather than actually creating the increased capacity we require. If radar technology was not being installed until recently, then previous incarnations should have included a multitude of cameras that left zero blind spots and these should have be managed by recognition software or enough people to ensure cars were spotted in seconds not half and hour later. Who paid for these 'dumb' smart motorways? What did they think they were getting? And has the contractors supplied what they said the would?

 

It sounds like the current Secretary for transport is trying to put things right, but who ****ed up in the past and who made money selling us 'smart' and delivering anything but? The Panarama programme does what it always does. Kicks up a stink, but leaves lots of questions unanswered.

Edited 28 January, 2020 by Chez

[Whitey Grandad]

Where does it state the same amount of traffic?

 

It doesn’t need to state it, I would have thought it was bleedin’ obvious. If the motorway wasn’t busy then it wouldn’t have been in ‘smart’ mode.

[whelk]

[Lighthouse]

Playing devils advocate, have there been any studies into how safe they are overall (let’s say serious accidents per mile) compared to non-smart motorways? Saying there were 38 deaths is a great headline but you could probably say 38 people were killed in Volvos last year and they’re one of the safest manufacturers on the road.

 

They’ve got very obvious faults which need to be addressed but nobody reports on accidents which haven’t happened. Perhaps a good start would be a maximum speed limit of 50mph if the hard shoulder is open to ease congestion.

[Marsdinho]

Did you try calling the services? On any motorway you are never more than 500m or so from an emergency phone. Hop over the barrier, walk to the nearest phone, job done

 

Initially, I thought I could change the tyre over for the spare....but the wrench that came with the car was of such poor quality that it bent when I tried to loosen the wheel, and eventually snapped! That then resulted in me ringing my breakdown service....it was whilst we were waiting that we noticed the whole motorway had been shut. 15 mins later, Highway Maint. turn up with their rolling road block of saints fans, to tell me my recovery vehicle is on its way.

 

Recovery vehicle told me to (slowly) drive on my shredded tyre to the next recovery bay about 100m away, where they used their proper wrench to get the wheel off!

[Chez]

Playing devils advocate, have there been any studies into how safe they are overall (let’s say serious accidents per mile) compared to non-smart motorways? Saying there were 38 deaths is a great headline but you could probably say 38 people were killed in Volvos last year and they’re one of the safest manufacturers on the road.

 

Good point. There are about 1500 road deaths a year, so it's only a small percentage.

 

The x20 rise in near misses on the M25 smart motorway was another headline figure. But how were near misses seen/recorded (the very low figure of about 75) before the smart motorway was implemented (I assume the radar technology spotted/recorded the 1500 near misses).