Smart Motorways, is it time to end them?

[AM9]

Though if you're using the motorway correctly, in the vast majority of cases you should be in the left hand lane unless you're overtaking... and if your vehicle has developed a fault you probably shouldn't be overtaking anyway.

That's assuming that you were in the LH lane when the fault first became apparent. If you were overtaking in the RH lane of a four lane fomation, it could take ove 1/2 mile to get to the LH side, or more if the traffic on the intervening lanes wasn't being particularly helpful. What often happens when somebody slows in the outside lane is that drivers behind make a dash up the inside, creating a risk of failing car running out of speed and being stranded in the outside lane.

 

[SynthD]

The technology as sold is fantastic. The technology as run is repeatedly deadly and should require drastic changes to make ‘smart’ roads safe when the brain is switched off.
Induced demand should mean traffic jams are only rewarded with cycle and bus lanes.

 

[Bald Rick]

ALR is what gets my goat, very dangerous in my opinion.

It really isn’t. I can drive at 60mph on the main road by my house, with no hard shoulder, and traffic coming the other way at 60mph with no barrier between us!

I don't find it astonishing at all. Cars very rarely break down instantly. More often something goes wrong, the driver well aware of it, and able to limp to safety. You have to get to the hard shoulder from a running lane even if there's a shoulder on the stretch you're on, after all.

My point is that a significant majority of people who are stopped on the hard shoulder shouldn’t have.

 

[Dai Corner]

I can drive at 60mph on the main road by my house, with no hard shoulder, and traffic coming the other way at 60mph with no barrier between us!

Not only that, but you probably have visitors or delivery drivers parking in the running lane and either have to stop in it to reverse into your driveway or reverse out into the road.

 

[zwk500]

As others have mentioned 'Smart Motorways' actually covers 3 main types:
The Variable Speed Limit only, as we've had for many years, is fantastic and when used effectively (and obeyed) can keep traffic flowing very smoothly.
Dynamic Hard Shoulder (i.e. only open when required) is good, although the junction designs can be rather ineffective as the hard shoulder turns into a full-time running lane then back into a hard shoulder, but there's no indication between a short stretch for merging or if it's a genuine lane gain, which leads to wasted capacity. However, because of the regular confirmation of the status of the Hard Shoulder, and the fact it's only opened if the motorway is very busy and the speed limit reduced, it's generally used properly.
All Lane Running is the most-criticised aspect of it. I personally don't like it - Motorways are meant to be critical infrastructure, and the loss of the emergency facility means recovery time will likely be longer. However, it's not intrinsically unsafe. By far the biggest problem is that most drivers seem to think lane 1 is still a hard shoulder, and so don't move left (and don't get me started on drivers who sit in the 2nd lane from the right at all times), which makes the widening effort pointless and leads me to question how many schemes should be binned in favour of just making sure drivers keep left, leave a safe distance, and actually make overtaking moves rather than very gradually drive alongside for 5 miles.

Making the theory test only valid for 5 or even 10 years would be relatively straightforward to do. Give drivers a window in which they must pass the test, even if they fail their first attempt they don't lose their license so long as they pass another attempt later on within the 6- or 12-month window. If you pass earlier, you still keep the original anniversary date so you wouldn't have drivers deliberately leaving it late to try and preserve their validity. This would probably only have a minor effect, but often it's small things on the big roads that set up situations where accidents occur (e.g. Following too close, not making good progress in the right-most lane)

 

[Ianno87]

. By far the biggest problem is that most drivers seem to think lane 1 is still a hard shoulder, and so don't move left

This. A thousand times this. "Oh, I'm not allowed!"

My non-driving wife has asked me "why are you driving on the hard shoulder?".

"Uh, because I'm supposed to?".

 

[carriageline]

To make them safer (and I hate myself for saying it) they should have more “enforcement cameras” and actually enforce the red X/closed lane. An enforcement camera at every gantry/mini gantry would stop people driving in closed lanes, but money isn’t going to allow that to happen..

There also needs to pressure on Highways England to properly manage the signs, ensuring they are changed promptly. I guess there isn’t an easy way for people to report when signs are left erroneously. Especially in the morning, when the signs mention road works, gantrys said 3 out of 4 lanes closed with a 40mph restriction, but not a single cone or construction vehicle in sight.

I recently saw 2 lane closed, and speed down to 40 due to a broken down vehicle. Passed the vehicle, and people put their foot down on the now open motorway, only to find the next gantry still saying 40, with a speed camera. The next gantry after then showed the National speed. That’s a trap, and isn’t really fair...

Or driving along a motorway, and one random gantry saying 40, with the inside lane saying 20(!) and all other gantrys showing nothing!

 

[bramling]

That's assuming that you were in the LH lane when the fault first became apparent. If you were overtaking in the RH lane of a four lane fomation, it could take ove 1/2 mile to get to the LH side, or more if the traffic on the intervening lanes wasn't being particularly helpful. What often happens when somebody slows in the outside lane is that drivers behind make a dash up the inside, creating a risk of failing car running out of speed and being stranded in the outside lane.

A very dangerous situation indeed, and one which should (IMO) receive a lot more attention from the enforcement agencies. As you say, the default response by many drivers is to undertake, rather than consider why someone might be slowing down.

To make them safer (and I hate myself for saying it) they should have more “enforcement cameras” and actually enforce the red X/closed lane. An enforcement camera at every gantry/mini gantry would stop people driving in closed lanes, but money isn’t going to allow that to happen..

There also needs to pressure on Highways England to properly manage the signs, ensuring they are changed promptly. I guess there isn’t an easy way for people to report when signs are left erroneously. Especially in the morning, when the signs mention road works, gantrys said 3 out of 4 lanes closed with a 40mph restriction, but not a single cone or construction vehicle in sight.

I recently saw 2 lane closed, and speed down to 40 due to a broken down vehicle. Passed the vehicle, and people put their foot down on the now open motorway, only to find the next gantry still saying 40, with a speed camera. The next gantry after then showed the National speed. That’s a trap, and isn’t really fair...

Or driving along a motorway, and one random gantry saying 40, with the inside lane saying 20(!) and all other gantrys showing nothing!

The quality of information presented to drivers on motorways is abysmal nowadays. A common one I find is speed limits approaching night-time roadworks, which I don't have a problem with except for the fact it now seems to be common practice round my way for the warnings to start being displayed 4-5 miles in advance, which when presented as a speed with no other accompanying information completely defeats the purpose, as in that situation I will be looking out for a hazard, which I don't expect to do for several miles and then find it's actually roadworks. Another one I encountered recently was a *20* mph restriction on the M4 near Newport for cones being laid out - this I found absolutely dangerous as slowing to 20 mph on a fairly empty motorway at night is asking for issues.

Given how dire things are in this regard I find it very hard to accept the notion that the technology is an adequate mitigation for lack of hard shoulder.

It really isn’t. I can drive at 60mph on the main road by my house, with no hard shoulder, and traffic coming the other way at 60mph with no barrier between us!


My point is that a significant majority of people who are stopped on the hard shoulder shouldn’t have.

Your 60 mph A-road is presumably not populated by lorry drivers who have allowed their attention to wonder. Much as we can say this shouldn't happen, fact is it *does* on motorways. The hard shoulder isn't perfect, but it's a damn sight better than being stuck in a live lane.

In 20 years I've had one occasion when I've experienced a major defect on the move, a water pump failure, which as it happened occurred on a dual-carriageway section of the A1. On that occasion it was fortunate that I was just approaching a roundabout, so was able to limp off the road, however I really wouldn't have liked to have gone much further in the circumstances.

By complete coincidence, the only other occasion the same car has run into issues was in the exact same location but heading southwards, when the battery charge fault lamp came on, which didn't affect the running of the car immediately and I was able to get to the same spot where I'd broken down about 15 years previous, where as suspected it was diagnosed as an alternator fault. From conversations with others at the time, every single person I spoke to at the time said "I'd have just carried on with that warning light on". Given that reality, can you really say it's safer not to have a hard shoulder, given that when the battery eventually drains the car will completely die potentially without even hazard lights?

 

[Bald Rick]

Given that reality, can you really say it's safer not to have a hard shoulder, given that when the battery eventually drains the car will completely die potentially without even hazard lights?

I didn’t say it was safer not to have a hard shoulder. What I did say or at least imply, is that All Lane running is safe (for a road), and certainly safer than a 60mph 2 lane road.

Funnily enough I have had an alternator fault on the motorway recently - but it certainly isn’t something I’d stop on the hard shoulder for, unless of course the car died completely. But I would get off at the next junction to have a look and see whether I could get it home.


Another +1 for drivers on ALRs who don’t know what lane 1 is for. Although it does make for relatively quick progress when lanes 2-4 are busy and there is no one in lane 1 for a mile or more.

 

[LSWR Cavalier]

The rules and variations are far too complicated, just to allow/facilitate even more traffic.

If I can not be sure that the signs are working properly I can not be sure what I must or must not do.

 

[Domh245]

There also needs to pressure on Highways England to properly manage the signs, ensuring they are changed promptly. I guess there isn’t an easy way for people to report when signs are left erroneously. Especially in the morning, when the signs mention road works, gantrys said 3 out of 4 lanes closed with a 40mph restriction, but not a single cone or construction vehicle in sight.

I recently saw 2 lane closed, and speed down to 40 due to a broken down vehicle. Passed the vehicle, and people put their foot down on the now open motorway, only to find the next gantry still saying 40, with a speed camera. The next gantry after then showed the National speed. That’s a trap, and isn’t really fair...

Or driving along a motorway, and one random gantry saying 40, with the inside lane saying 20(!) and all other gantrys showing nothing!

Agreed, (seemingly) improper speed limits are my biggest issue with smart motorways. A low limit on an otherwise clear motorway is always something that concerns me - do you brake hard to get to that low limit ASAP, do you just coast down to the speed keeping an eye out for hazards, do you ignore the signs assuming they're erroneous - I've seen all three options be taken. My preference is option two, particularly where traffic is still freely moving and there's no hazards within sight, but even then you end up driving on the mirrors to check that nothing (lorries particularly..) is hurtling towards you

The most dangerous thing on a motorway is a speed differential, and improving the way in which speed limits are imposed/removed will reduce a key source of these.

 

[cactustwirly]

I absolutely have. But the fact of the matter is that widening motorways is not a solution to that. It is, no pun intended, kicking the can down the road. Widened roads induce demand - in other words, they encourage more driving, and the enlarged roads just fill up again.

The actual solution is to shift as much of the traffic as possible either onto alternative modes (e.g. rail) or into more space-efficient vehicles (e.g. coaches) so that for those who genuinely need to use a car, the road flows properly.

But public transport is hopeless that's why people travel by car. If you want people to switch you need to make public transport affordable and much more convenient.

I got the bus to work on Friday because I was going to the pub afterwards. It was more expensive than the car, it took double the time and the times were very inconvenient. I'll be sticking to the car in future.

 

[py_megapixel]

But public transport is hopeless that's why people travel by car. If you want people to switch you need to make public transport affordable and much more convenient.

I got the bus to work on Friday because I was going to the pub afterwards. It was more expensive than the car, it took double the time and the times were very inconvenient. I'll be sticking to the car in future.

Yes. What I was trying to say is that the actual solution to the problem is not to provide more space to cars, it's to provide good quality alternatives so people shift onto them.

 

[bramling]

I didn’t say it was safer not to have a hard shoulder. What I did say or at least imply, is that All Lane running is safe (for a road), and certainly safer than a 60mph 2 lane road.

Funnily enough I have had an alternator fault on the motorway recently - but it certainly isn’t something I’d stop on the hard shoulder for, unless of course the car died completely. But I would get off at the next junction to have a look and see whether I could get it home.

I wouldn't stop on the hard shoulder either, but in that situation I'd certainly be in lane one and prepared to be straight into the hard shoulder should the car die. I wouldn't want to be in the situation of relying on a refuge appearing at the right moment.

An alternator failure is potentially very nasty - on the occasion I described I had the car towed home as it was late evening, the pick-up truck offloaded the car at the bottom of my road and we agreed I would drive it to where I wanted to leave it, and if there were any issues we'd either push it or use the truck to tow it the last bit. As it happened the car died just as I reached where I wanted to park, it *really wasn't* a comfortable feeling to lose everything, including all lighting, on a dark road, even in this case a quiet dead-end residential cul-de-sac.

 

[Dai Corner]

Yes. What I was trying to say is that the actual solution to the problem is not to provide more space to cars, it's to provide good quality alternatives so people shift onto them.

But very few public transport alternatives are better than driving even the ropiest car along the most congested roads.

 

[bramling]

But very few public transport alternatives are better than driving even the ropiest car along the most congested roads.

This is the thing. A proportion of the population simply won't entertain public transport without stuff like private compartments. I must admit I've found myself edging towards that point as trains have got busier over the last two decades. In any case there isn't really the public transport capacity to absorb a massive modal shift, likewise in many cases it simply isn't possible to provide viable public transport especially for rural areas.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Reinstate hard shoulders but keep all other aspects, including closing the new lane 1 if a vehicle is seen stopped on the hard shoulder.

 

[mmh]

Which then no longer makes them special roads (ignoring the way the A55 is dealt with) and you can have tractors and mopeds pootling along them

It really isn’t. I can drive at 60mph on the main road by my house, with no hard shoulder, and traffic coming the other way at 60mph with no barrier between us!





My point is that a significant majority of people who are stopped on the hard shoulder shouldn’t have.

My counterpoint will be that you have no way of knowing that, so it's meaningless supposition. That none of the agencies responsible for motorways put any significant effort into hard shoulder education suggests it isn't the problem you're assuming.

Where are you driving that cars in hard shoulders are so commonplace? I find them very rare. I'm afraid I cannot believe there's any large number of people who would willingly stop in one. They're not attractive for a picnic, and most people will be terrified of having to be in one.

 

[AM9]

Reinstate hard shoulders but keep all other aspects, including closing the new lane 1 if a vehicle is seen stopped on the hard shoulder.

Yup, I'd agree with that. If there is somebody at risk on the hard shoulder, then mitigating that risk takes priority over any other road users' presumption that their journeys are too important to be delayed by such mitigations. Anybody who uses any public road should be prepared for incidents that might delay their journey. If their arrival time is so important then leaving more time for the journey is the only means of reducing the possibilitry of being late. Those who say "my time is too valuable" to leave sufficent time just reveals an inflated sense of their own importance and a lack of consideration for others.
There is only one group of road users that are sometimes an exception to this and they are the emergency services who are responding to the urgent needs of others.

 

[gingerheid]

Had the "pleasure" of these today. Terrifying. In particular, a special flaw in the idea is that the busiest roads are the ones specifically least suitable for conversion; because they are the ones where lack of a hard shoulder is most dangerous.

Yup, I'd agree with that. If there is somebody at risk on the hard shoulder, then mitigating that risk takes priority over any other road users' presumption that their journeys are too important to be delayed by such mitigations. Anybody who uses any public road should be prepared for incidents that might delay their journey. If their arrival time is so important then leaving more time for the journey is the only means of reducing the possibilitry of being late. Those who say "my time is too valuable" to leave sufficent time just reveals an inflated sense of their own importance and a lack of consideration for others.
There is only one group of road users that are sometimes an exception to this and they are the emergency services who are responding to the urgent needs of others.

Everything they said. Also, if only there was some way we could provide some sort of clear access lane that in the event of an accident could be used by the emergency services to get to... oh. Wait a mo...

 

[jamjam92043]

the smart motorways arnt very smart tho as they cause even more tailbacks then a normal motorway does .

 

[AM9]

the smart motorways arnt very smart tho as they cause even more tailbacks then a normal motorway does .

That's typical of a system that is tuned for maximum performance (throughput in this example), -when things aren't running perfectly, the fine-tuning measures break down. The flow of traffic on a public highway is not part of a machine, - driver behaviour is largely compliant with 'assumed' rules but greatly disrupted by impatience and bullying of the few.
There is a certain familiarity with normal motorway designs that isn't compromised by rapid changing of rules like closing lanes and making emergency stops far more hazardous. Drivers by and large, have learnt to cope with stoppages and slow running over the 80 years that they have been with us. When there is disruption, the only additional casualties are delayed arrivals. Not really life-changing.

 

[LSWR Cavalier]

@gingerheid
"Terrifying"is the word.

Seems crazy to have more new complicated rules when many drivers do not know the existing ones, or choose to ignore them. Lots of signs have long texts that take several seconds to read.

 

[Bletchleyite]

the smart motorways arnt very smart tho as they cause even more tailbacks then a normal motorway does .

They don't. Variable speed limits are very effective. They would be even more effective if the automated system could go down to 10mph.

 

[zwk500]

Also, if only there was some way we could provide some sort of clear access lane that in the event of an accident could be used by the emergency services to get to... oh. Wait a mo...

Being brutally honest, given how often drivers block the hard shoulder trying to get to the next junction/services, or there's a discontinuous HS because of cheap widening not including the bridges, clearing a path for emergency vehicles is often done more effectively by smart motorway lane closures.

They don't. Variable speed limits are very effective. They would be even more effective if the automated system could go down to 10mph.

Tbh, once you get the VSL down to 30/20mph nobody's doing more than walking pace anyway.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Tbh, once you get the VSL down to 30/20mph nobody's doing more than walking pace anyway.

It can only do down to 40mph automatically, anything lower than that is set manually and relies on someone watching. At 40 you still get a lot of "stop start" and brake light cascade which is what it is designed to avoid by keeping a lower but more constant speed. Automatic down to 20 would help even if not 10.

 

[zwk500]

It can only do down to 40mph automatically, anything lower than that is set manually and relies on someone watching. At 40 you still get a lot of "stop start" and brake light cascade which is what it is designed to avoid by keeping a lower but more constant speed. Automatic down to 20 would help even if not 10.

Ah, fair enough. That explains why so much is set to 40 when traffic is doing well below that. Is there any particular reason for the auto system cutting off there?

 

[AM9]

Ah, fair enough. That explains why so much is set to 40 when traffic is doing well below that. Is there any particular reason for the auto system cutting off there?

Wouldn't the opportunities for the speed measuring 'devices' be too unreliable as the queue would be nearly continuous that individual vehicles would be undetectable?

 

[Bletchleyite]

Wouldn't the opportunities for the speed measuring 'devices' be too unreliable as the queue would be nearly continuous that individual vehicles would be undetectable?

That'd be true if 20 was set manually, though, as I have certainly seen happen particularly on the M25. The system can do down to 20 (don't know about 10), just not without manual intervention.

 

[AM9]

That'd be true if 20 was set manually, though, as I have certainly seen happen particularly on the M25. The system can do down to 20 (don't know about 10), just not without manual intervention.

My post was actually a 'suggestive technical question' in response to @zwk500's post #57 question: "Is there any particular reason for the auto system cutting off there?"