How Long Before Tragedy With This Monumentally Stupid Idea?

[ToraToraTora]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-surrey-40473727
No hard shoulder? madness.

[DTCwordfan]

I've got am ambulance that needs renting out....

however given this, Derbyshire, here it comes... I doubt the M3 comes even close..... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/07/31/worst-roundabout-britain-multiple-crashes-lethal-roundabout/

[tonyav]

Lots of areas on the M5 and M6 without hard shoulders.

[237SJ]

Yes but are they on a major junction between two converging motorways?

[Buenchico]

NJ seems to be a decade or two out of date. The emergency services no longer routinely use the hard shoulder to access accident scenes because it's been shown that the risk of them getting stuck behind, say, a broken down truck (with no easy way of getting around it) is too great. These days the standard procedure is to clear a path between traffic on the outer two lanes of the motorway for emergency vehicles to pass along.

[tonyav]

Yes 237SJ, where the M5 finishes and joins up to the M6.

[sunny-dave]

... and the M40/M42 merge now has 'full lane running' and gantries - works so much better than it used to.

[sunny-dave]

Thanks Chris - saved me a wodge of typing!

[Old_Geezer]

There'd be even less grumbling with four lanes plus hard shoulder.
I've enough experience of no hard shoulder to know that I don't like it.

[Old_Geezer]

Mind you, it's not as bad as those that are normal lane or hard shoulder on whim and changes from one to another. You just know you'll get caught out one day.

[237SJ]

I agree OG. I broke down on the M25 in roadworks where the hard shoulder had been temporarily turned into a lane. The motorway phones had been disabled due to said road works (in the days when not everyone had a mobile) It was at night and I just sat there and thought "What do I do now"? Thankfully, I managed to get the car going again. I didn't fancy sitting there for hours, waiting for the cops to turn up

[mikey4444]

I said this was madness when it was trialled on the M5 approach to Brum, and I was right.

[tonyav]

M6 through Brum, mikey.

[mikey4444]

Tony......I thought it was the northwards approach to the outskirts of Brum ?

[tonyav]

Don't tell those in West Brom or Oldbury, mikey. Black Country folk don't like being called Brummies ;-)

[Ellipsis]

The problem with smart motorways is that they rely on smart drivers, and not all drivers are smart all of the time ... so you end up with cases like this, on a patch of "smart" motorway:

http://www.kentonline.co.uk/gravesend/news/elderly-man-found-guilty-of-115862/

[mikey4444]

lol Tony !

[Zacs-Master]

Quite a stretch of the M62 in West Yorkshire is like this. There are refuges every 1.5 miles I think. Seems to work ok.

[jno]

ordinary motorways require smart drivers too. If a driver's dopey enough to run into the back of another car that's got its lights flashing, he's just as likely to cause problems in any lane. He wasn't paying attention, whatever the overhead signs said (which seems to have been in dispute).

[237SJ]

From what I have seen, many broken down drivers do not have their hazard lights flashing.

[jno]

most people only seem to use them when parking on double yellow lines - apparently that makes you immune from being towed away