Widow sues Highways over smart motorway death

[MissMoppet]

Don't know about you but I am horrified and mystified over the increasing use of doing away with the hard shoulder. It would terrify me to have to come to a stop in a busy lane with nowhere to get off. Two days ago a widow instituted proceedings for corporate manslaughter. Here's the report from one newspaper.

Has some genius decided that a few pile-ups are worth expanding the width of our motorways?

Dave

[trikey]

I don’t like the idea at all, even when the hard shoulder is in use they have been many deaths due to collisions with a stationary vehicle.

If your car breaks down, get it off the hard shoulder if possible and onto the verge, if it’s a manual put it in gear and use the starter motor if you have to.

[coolguy]

Such motorways are neither smart (they are inanimate objects, so cannot be!), nor safe. I fear that the few deaths we have heard of so far will be only the tip of the iceberg. I avoid them at all costs when possible.

[Vossy]

I remember that accident but I fear she is not going to get far with it, I hope she doesn't end up losing big time over this, house etc.
Government departments are so adapt at sidestepping these things, in 30 years and after many many deaths there may ... may, be an inquiry into why it happens.
Knee jerk reactions to serious problems seems to be the way with governments here unfortunately.

I wish her luck though. Sad story.

[wraymond]

It might be just a bit realistic if more care was taken with these things if the Ministers concerned held some liability for their decisions involving public safety.

There seems to be no responsibility shouldered where there are budget priorities concerned. Given that Ministers get shunted around whenever it suits favourite-of-the-month theory and therefore there is reason to suppose they might just lack a smidgeon of expertise in the principle involved, the public is entitled to expect better. Instead everybody runs for the hills when it goes pear-shaped.

[LotusLC]

Has to be the most stupid thing ever to use the hard shoulder on these smart motorways. Who in the right mind would implement such a thing.
This whole world need one big shake up , it's been run by some strange people.

[macafee2]

my sympathies go to the families and friends of those involved, it is a devastating tragedy and not one anyone should take lightly or dismiss.

Not having a place of safety on such a fast flowing road is asking for someone to be killed and fate has obliged on more then one occasion and alas I suspect will do so again.


Consider this, we have lots of fast A roads and they do not have a hard shoulder.

Was the decision to stop in a live lane sensible? When you read this from the article
"..... Jason Mercer, 44, and another driver, Alexandru Murgeanu, 22, both died in June this year following a minor collision on the northbound M1 near Sheffield. "

Minor, it is easy to ask why did they not drive to a place of safety but at the time they probably thought exchanging details was the right thing to do.

To make the hard shoulder safer when used as a live lane should all the lanes have a reduced speed limit, 40 or 50mph? Perhaps we should go back to the hard shoulder being only used as a place of "safety".

Perhaps it is the risk of rear ending someone that makes people not use the hard shoulder as a lane but stay in lane 1....I just thought they were knobs but may be I should rethink.

why were the two drivers hit by a third?

macafee2

[Comfortably Numb]

Do we know if either car involved was disabled by their minor accident? I agree, a hard shoulder should not be used as a live lane - for one thing, the emergency services may need it. But stopping on a motorway is illegal except in an emergency, or to prevent an accident, or unless signalled to do so by a relevant authority (which includes smart signage). To stop in a live lane to exchange insurance details is not a sensible thing to do. If I were Minister of Transport, I would stop HS 2, and spend some of the money on providing extra, Heavy Vehicle Only lanes on our busiest motorways, to improve separation of heavy vehicles from light and vulnerable cars, but always keeping a hard shoulder free.
On my daily commute last year, on the 30 mile stretch of relatively quiet M6 in Cumbria between junctions 36 and 40,there would be very few days when I didn't see at least 1 stationary vehicle on the hard shoulder. Modern cars may be more reliable, but they do break down. I lost count of the number of traffic reports I heard about serious delays caused by an accident in the "Smart Motorway Improvements" near Knutsford. That section was absolute hell. I hope it works better now the smart works are complete (are they?)

[KWIL]

My only experience of Smart Motorways is the M3 and the Eastern M42 around Birmingham.

Both work extremely well in the circumstances.

[Snetty]

Originally Posted by Comfortably Numb

Do we know if either car involved was disabled by their minor accident? I agree, a hard shoulder should not be used as a live lane - for one thing, the emergency services may need it. But stopping on a motorway is illegal except in an emergency, or to prevent an accident, or unless signalled to do so by a relevant authority (which includes smart signage). To stop in a live lane to exchange insurance details is not a sensible thing to do. If I were Minister of Transport, I would stop HS 2, and spend some of the money on providing extra, Heavy Vehicle Only lanes on our busiest motorways, to improve separation of heavy vehicles from light and vulnerable cars, but always keeping a hard shoulder free.
On my daily commute last year, on the 30 mile stretch of relatively quiet M6 in Cumbria between junctions 36 and 40,there would be very few days when I didn't see at least 1 stationary vehicle on the hard shoulder. Modern cars may be more reliable, but they do break down. I lost count of the number of traffic reports I heard about serious delays caused by an accident in the "Smart Motorway Improvements" near Knutsford. That section was absolute hell. I hope it works better now the smart works are complete (are they?)

The works between j16 and j19 are now finished but further south there are more between j13 /j15 and j2/j4 all a complete nightmare as the lanes are very tight and middle lane hogging mostly by cars is commonplace ( not help by the fact that hgvs have calibrated Speedos) sitting at 45mph.
Separating hgvs from everyone else is ok but in order to provide safe refuge it would have to be completely separate and would be hellishly expensive to boot.
In addition to the really sound advice from Trikey please stand behind the barrier if there is one a good distance behind the vehicle, if you stand to the front of the vehicle and others hit you could well be in the firing line.