Is it smart enough?
Apologies if this topic has been covered in the past but after traveling on the M6 and M5 last weekend it looks like most of it will soon be converted into a “smart motorway”.
I suppose it is something we must all get used to but for now it feels unnerving enough while solo never mind those of you who are towing a caravan.
Having a small emergency lay-by every 1.6 miles and relying on other drivers to react to the red lane closure X does not fill me with confidence.
What do you think?
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One thing that is very noticeable when the hard shoulder has been taken away in favour of another lane ,,is that most are now it seems long slip roads for the next junction,so if using the "extra?"Lane it means pulling out into the next lane at regular intervals which is OK if road is not busy, vary rare, we now when towing keep behind HGVs who tend not to use the nearside lane because of that problem
The distances between "refuges is now a hot topic to get them reduced
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I though the Govt said a few weeks ago that the move to smart m/ways was to be halted due to fatalities. No doubt those that are work in progress will continue.
Smart m/ways are a moronic concept in my view.
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People keep getting killed due to this motorway style. I'm glad I live in Scotland where the motorway widening schemes include a new hard shoulder and we have none of this "smart" nonsense.
It is possible to avoid using motorways but this considerably increases journey time. So one has to balance that against what one sees as the increased risk - this is a personal decision and your's could differ from mine. When I do have to drive on one I keep an extra lookout for where the next lay-by is coming up (though there is no guarantee it will be empty) since things are too busy to keep looking at the odometer - and anyway they could be further apart than the claimed 1.6 miles.
An extra lookout is especially necessary where the left lane is only in use at certain times, or on certain stretches, as signage for folk who have not been that way in a long time seems to be lacking.
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I did notice that fewer drivers were going over the speed limit probably due to there being so many cameras, this caused a lot of congestion in the two right lanes, they were both going the maximum speed. It sort of made having four lanes pointless
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Nevers, we live a couple of miles from the smart section of the M1 in South Yorkshire, where the fatalities that prompted the halting of the roll out occurred. It’s so dangerous, we actually choose to drive to a lower or higher junction to get on, so that we can limit the time we spend in the “smart” section. Our elected Police Commissioner promised to campaign for the abolition of the smart motorway in his electoral campaign, which he won easily.
The simple fact is that there’s no where to go in a breakdown. Hence traffic is smashing into anything broken down. The promised layby distances were altered, and the cameras supposedly spotting any potential problems do not have sufficient staff overseeing them. The fatalities are the dreadful tip of a much bigger iceberg, many, many more near misses and non fatal incidences.
They work fine if traffic is light, no one breaks down, and visibility remains perfect at all times, and no one is speeding or inattentive. La La Land indeed.☹️
http://www.transport-network.co.uk/Smart-motorway-deaths-rise-to-record-levels/17147
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We do tend to avoid m/ways more than we used to but it's often not sensible to detour and time is a factor. Those of us who have to reach Bristol before the northern hemisphere opens up to us don't have a lot of choice.
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We still call the M4M5 interchange “Death Alley” Tinny. We have done a couple of unintended trips to Filton as well years ago after not making it all the way across☹️ Bad enough solo, but towing far worse. Last few years we have altered our route down and come to it from Tewkesbury, which is far easier.
For us, it represents the pinnacle of the Civil Engineering mindset. We know what’s best for you, our plans are best, we never get things wrong. Our town is littered with smaller vanity projects that make a daily commute into a circular nightmare. One of my BIL’s used to work for our Planning Dept. (He is lovely, got out years ago) I once suffered a party with some of his then Planning colleagues. Hard to imagine meeting a more arrogant bunch of people. ☹️
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We don't find that jcn much of a problem either.
I remember the days before the Avon Bridge was built🤣🤣🤣
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It’s seven years now since we last used it Brue, we have taken more scenic routes in that time, so it might have changed. I do recall heading South, you had to get across around four lanes of traffic coming across from M4, to get into right Lane to go straight on down M5. Going North, to get onto M4, the signage always misled us, you got into what you thought was the correct Lane, only to have to switch back to get around onto the M4. All with other lanes coming in from other junctions as well.
It was always easier in heavy traffic, things a lot slower and thankfully driving a big 4x4 helped.
We didn’t do Filton as a diversion, merely got it wrong. Mind, we did once opt to go straight through Bristol (not towing), an interesting exercise😂
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We solved that one. Have never driven on the M25😂
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You'll probably find it OK this time round TDA, especially from the north. From the south you need to get in the correct lanes north but it's not too bad. Watch out for speed cameras between the bridge and the M4/5 junctions, they are always in use.
We'll be using the M25 on our next trip, not much choice involved!
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It's interesting that there is such an uproar about Smart Motorways because the don't have hard shoulders. There are thousands of miles of dual carriageways in this country which also don't have hard shoulders but do share the same speed limits. Many of those dual carriageways seem just as busy as many motorways to me? Ideally all motorways would be built with a hard shoulder the problem is that many of those roads wouldn't have been made four lane had they had to build a new hard shoulder. The real issue with Smart Motorways is that the laybys are too far apart, a minimum spacing of one kilometre would be much better.
David
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It’s not just no hard shoulder DK, parts have no where to go at all around us, maybe a three foot wide gap between Armco and a river fence. You breakdown, you get out as fast as you can and run to somewhere in front of your broken down vehicle, hopefully before something else ploughs into the rear of it. It really is that bad. Breakdowns, punctures etc.... seldom happen next to laybys. We have already said that if we had a puncture, we just keep going. Better a shredded tyre, ruined wheel than being mashed to bits by an HGV. Our local MPs, local communities, Police Commissioner etc..... all involved in campaign. Highways England have been referred for corporate manslaughter over one death. The fact that all the extra work in terms of making extra refuges, improvements to technology amounts to acknowledgement that things initially weren’t right and in place.
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Two of the sections that are partly converted are 10 miles long and I doubt they will revert back to having a hard shoulder after spending £millions already.
If you are traveling to the South West from the North West you can’t really avoid the motorways.
The RAC are against “smart” motorways on safety grounds but this is an interesting quote from Highways England…..
”Highways England has published statistics from data gathered since the first smart motorway opened in 2006 to say:
Journey reliability has improved by 22%
Personal injury accidents have been reduced by more than half.It only proves that statistics are only as good as the questions you ask.
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Nail on the head Nevers. The Highways Agency is using flawed statistics. Another link to the issue here, lots of others to read for those interested.
Sitting looking over a section of the M1 near us is a real eye opener in terms of driver behaviour on these four Lane sections. You are constantly asking yourself what would happen if someone breaks down and stops. There’s simply no where to go safely. Hard shoulders were bad enough, OH was always attending RTA’s where other vehicles had shunted stationary vehicles from behind. Now they can do it at 70 mph🤷♀️
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The worst "not so smart "motorway in my opinion is the M3 at the M25 end , the junctions are so close together and is very busy, so vehicles are for ever having to keep moving into the "middle" lane which is the road we learnt to follow the knowledgeable HGVs drivers and stick to the middle lane
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Travelled up from Cornwall to near Northampton, via Redditch, yesterday.
Staying at a hotel near J15 of the M1, great for Amazon van spotters, and was curious about the seemingly 100s of vans, and huge numbers of heavy plant, plus road closures.
So had a look on Google to find the heavy plant is on anew rail interchange site that’s creating 5 million square feet of storage at a cost of £107 million.
The hundreds of vans are connected with the creation of an ALR-no me neither-which is an All Lanes Running, or Smart Motorway along 23 miles of the M1.
The cost? £373 million. For that money I would expect far better than Smart.
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Journey reliability has improved by 22%
Personal injury accidents have been reduced by more than halfDoes anyone have to hand the statistics for the same period of time for "dumb" motoways? Hmm. I thought not. They are not saying.
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Is there a link, Rocky?
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Possibly Guardian Nav. Looks very like their type face.
Its a photograph of the M1 near us where two people died, prompted the inquiry.
Edit, it is the Guardian. Here is link to whole article, read it all, and you see where the issues are, namely doing it on the cheap and not following approved distances for refuges and staffing of cameras. This is a very, very busy stretch of motorway, with lots of junctions.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/22/are-smart-motorways-safe
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Thanks. Not quite "Times New Roman" then.
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I just punched in ‘smart motorways’ & that was one of the things that came up. From what I read it seemed smart M’s are good for traffic flow but do take lives. Anything that brings fast trucks closer to broken down & static vehicles can’t be good☹️
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Driving down the M6 yesterday from the junction with M56 to the turnoff to Knutsford, just before roadworks that are installing "Smart" Ms we were astounded to see a man with a helmet on riding on an electric hoverboard down the hard shoulder and texting whilst doing so.😱
We did wonder if he noticed the hard shoulder had disappeared after the Knutsford junction.
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