Coroner calls for review of Smart Motorways

[Steamdrivenandy]

The whole reason for adopting smart motorways was to get additional roadspace on the cheap compared to building additional lanes with hard shoulder. I guess if traffic volumes reduce with future working patterns and I think that's still a big 'if', then the cynic in mean says the government will think 'at least we didn't spend a lot more on building the full extra capacity we should have done'. I think smug complacency about covers it.

[trikey]

The designer of ‘smart’ motorways, should have their family sat in a car, broken down on the hard shoulder of a smart motorway.

I’m sure their idea would be changed rather swiftly.

[Avulon]

Smart motorways? exposing the hypocrisy of vision zero at a motorway near you right now!


I don't believe in vision zero, it's a flawed concept from the start off. I also don't believe in pointless risks, Having a 'refuge' every mile isn't sufficient A breakdown can happen anywhere. It's bad enough if a complete breakdown happens when not in the first lane of a normal motorway...

[Rick-sta]

I don't understand how these people who make decisions like building these "smart" motorways actually get appointed these positions as they never seem to have common sense.

First completed smart motorway I drove on straight away I saw the problem with there being no hard shoulder and couldn't believe it!

And yet those in the positions to design these motorways and approve them couldn't see a obvious problem? Or did they decide that the cost of several lives a year due to the lack of a hard shoulder outweighed the cost of widening these motorways properly with a hard shoulder?

Seems like the case in this article last year, where it was revealed in a document bosses refused to install extra refuge areas on a stretch of smart motorway to save a 2% cost, where 2 people were killed on that stretch in 2019. The document stated 'primary goals' was 'not improving safety' but to 'ensure that the scheme is no less safe than the safety baseline'. So rather than making them as safe as possible they're happy with just meeting bare minimum? Imagine losing a family member over a 2% cost saving.

link: https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/...-motorway.html

Their answer to lack of hard shoulders is that there's refuge areas where you can stop in emergencies around every 1.5m miles apart. Because everyone can time their breakdown with one of these refuge areas right? Or coast their car over a mile to reach one. Fine if the car goes into limp mode but total power loss, tyre blow out etc and you're stuck in a live lane.

And have you noticed how short these refuge areas are in length? With a hard shoulder you can pull onto it at 70mph and slow down safely, same with rejoining the motorway you can build up speed before rejoining. You can't do that with these refuge areas. you have to significantly slow down in a live lane before pulling into them, so they're not even safe to pull in and out of.

Then there's the breakdown services having their lives put in danger when recovering stranded vehicles in a live lane. Think some breakdown services have said they won't even come out to recover you if you're stuck in a live lane of a smart motorway now due to safety concerns?

Highway patrol also face the same danger when they have to attend a stranded car to close off the lane.

Then there's all the problems a breakdown causes with traffic flow. On the old style 3 lane + hard shoulder motorways when there was a breakdown the vehicle could stop on the hard shoulder safely and the rest of the traffic could flow by with no disruption what so ever. Now with these smart motorways as soon as vehicle car breaks down and is stuck in lane 1 it causes huge tail backs. And then so often I've seen the highway patrol turn up and shut lane 1 and lane 2 for the broken down vehicle in lane 1 causing even worse tail backs bottle necking the motorway from 4 lanes down to 2 for one broken down vehicle. I've even been stuck in nonsense like this where they shut all four lanes over a broken down vehicle sticking out halfway in lane 1 for an age! In this clip it's only 15 mins, I've been stuck much longer in the same senario, imagine the tail backs this causes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYthgLchcsw

Then there's the sections where it's 3 lanes + a hard shoulder which during peak times the hard shoulder is used as a live lane. This just seemed to cause so much confusion for so many drivers. Have seen cars drive down the hard shoulder at times when it wasn't a live lane, and when it is a live lane the lorries and 90% of other road users just sit in lanes 2, 3 and 4. It's like driver's don't trust the big "USE HARD SHOULDER" lit up flashing signs.

Another problem was driver's weren't really educated on how to use these smart motorways. There's been articles by the RAC etc but never seen anything officially advertised by the government on TV etc to try and educate as many as possible. Many years ago you used to get public information ads on TV on stuff like this.

38 deaths in 5 years on smart motorways. Can't find any more details if these 38 deaths were all due to being stranded on a smart motorway with no safe place to stop, or if this figure includes general collisions/accidents as well? Even if it was just 1 death, that's still 1 death too many that should never have happened if they put safety first instead of cost saving.

323 miles of smart motorway. 120 miles of it has a traditional hard shoulder, 68 miles of it has a hard shoulder which is used as a live lane during peak times, and 135 miles are all live lane running sections with no hard shoulder, with a further 123 miles currently still being converted with no hard shoulder. and even more is yet to be started. Billions spent, over 10 years of roadworks, hours and hours wasted sitting in traffic through roadworks whilst these smart motorways were being build, adding tonnes of pollution from all the traffic during all these roadworks and 203 out of 323 miles of smart motorways are unsafe and under constant criticism. What a waste of time and money.

and now due to these safety issues they're rolling out a radar detection system over the next 3 years to try and make these motorways safer. Wonder how much that will costs and eat into their "savings" from removing hard shoulders?

Should have build them properly, simple 4 lane motorways with a hard shoulder instead of wasting millions on the useless variable speed limits nonsense and blitzing the motorways with speed cameras to go with these variable speed limits and all these additional cameras and radar systems to detect broken down vehicles due to a lack of hard shoulder.

Even on the old motorways and dual carriageways with a hard shoulder there's been instances where a broken down vehicle parked well out of the way on a hard shoulder has been struck by a vehicle in lane 1, so what did they expect would happen when they remove the hard shoulder completely and leave vehicles stranded in a live lane.

Those responsible for these poor decisions need to be held accountable. Total incompetence when the general public could see the problem with the smart motorway design from day 1. But nothing will come of this. Just more lives will be lost every year.

[AndyN01]

Originally Posted by Rick-sta

......


38 deaths in 5 years on smart motorways......

IMHO, there's your answer.

I'll guess that the "view" high up is that those figures are insignificant compared to the benefits/costs of the overall improved traffic flow and the saving of not building a complete new lane.

Everything will come down to money.

If my opinion is correct then it's sad isn't it.

[Steamdrivenandy]

What really, really gets me angry is, whilst it may have been a silly brainstorming idea by a junior civil servant out to make a name for himself, or a transport ministers wheeze to save money during 'austerity', there must've been so many stages during which the idea could and should have been squashed.

[AndyN01]

Originally Posted by Steamdrivenandy

What really, really gets me angry is, whilst it may have been a silly brainstorming idea by a junior civil servant out to make a name for himself, or a transport ministers wheeze to save money during 'austerity', there must've been so many stages during which the idea could and should have been squashed.

It'll never be squashed if the balance of benefits/costs vs risks falls on the costs side.

Being brutal, a few people dying costs HM Govt a few million pounds. This may well be considered acceptable when the bean counters do their sums.

The folks giving the advice will be very aware of which way the wind is blowing through the various corridors in Westminster and, of course, he who pays the piper...... Add to that politicians who are generally only interested in the short term and doing whatever will get them re-elected and you've a recipe for the sort of decisions we get.

I've posted before, have a read of these books. They are not in any way party political but shed a pretty bright light on how stuff happens.

The Whitehall Effect by John Seddon and

The Blunders of our Governments by Anthony King and Ivor Crewe

[torque2me]

Grant Shapps has, like every bad WW1 general, has ignored casualties and has vowed to keep the project going (as is HS2).

Kev

[torque2me]

I have no doubt that if it was a private firm then Corporate Manslaughter charges would be brought. As it is a Govt. agency then all is o.k.!

Kev

[torque2me]

Originally Posted by trikey

The designer of ‘smart’ motorways, should have their family sat in a car, broken down on the hard shoulder of a smart motorway.

Should that not read 'sat in a car in the live lane a mile away from a refuge point'.

Kev