Talk Morgan Forums Community The Malvern Arms Smart Motorway - near death experience!

I thought there was something around the cascade effect difference?

An accident on a B road is at risk of taking out 1-2 cars and then forming a small delay.
An accident on a busy A road (not a dual carriage way like the A34) could have onward problems with shunts in the tailback.
An accident on a more traffic dense, higher speed A34/M4 route can bring massive sudden consequences leading to a multiple car/lorry incident.

The speed/mass issue also leading to a far higher likelihood of deaths due to impact energy? Add the further problems of weather and long journey torpor and it only takes one moment for it to go from a flash to a bang.

Also I have had many experiences of watching two people indicate from lane 1 and 3 to move into the same gap in lane 2 only to find out at the last minute and swerve violently. Short of having the eye pattern of a squirrel I don't see this being fixed. The current range of deeply annoying side collision warning systems do not seem to flag this convergence until it is too late.

Having had accidents/failures on all of those I would still rather avoid having one on a motorway at all, an "intelligent" one even less so. A back road allows me to slow others heading towards it as much as let me retire to a safer place.

Sadly not.

I wouldn't want anyone to think that just because motorways generally are statistically safer than other roads that I think Smart motorways are a good idea from a safety point of view. It seems to me that the idea originated from a highways agency that was under extreme pressure to increase the flow rate of traffic on motorways at peak times whilst being desperately underfunded so they were unable to actually add any road space.

The findings of the All Party Parliamentary Group on all lane running make for interesting reading and I believe their recommendations should be implemented. Whether they will or not remains to be seen.

https://smartmotorwayskill.co.uk/wp...PPG-for-Roadside-Rescue-and-Recovery.pdf

But having said that we must recognise that there have only been 38 deaths in the last five years. Yes, it's a problem, but out of around 7,500 total road deaths in the period it's not as significant as we might think.

There are claims knocking around the interweb that smart motorways are the means by which the infrastructure for road usage charging is being rolled out. I cannot find anything to substantiate this.

I wouldn't be at all surprised. Road use charging is inevitable, and busy motorways are the obvious place to start.

Road pricing will do two things.......it will put much more traffic on minor roads, look at how quiet the M6 Toll is a lot of the time, because people would rather slog up a congested M6 than pay.

And being clocked on and off the motorway means an automatic timing against distance, which inevitably will lead onto fines for speeding, I would have thought.

We do a weekly run to Derby and on an evening, the roads are quiet anyway, most of the time. Returning mid morning weekday, the Motorway isn't too bad usually, although with four lanes of moving traffic. The country lane alternative adds 30 minutes to a 45 minute journey, but is mostly B roads or less, and is generally an easy run, which we often chose anyway.

I will freely admit to hogging the middle lane when riding my motorbike. IMO its safer giving me room for avoiding accidents on both sides. The secret to being safe on a bike in traffic is to have a bubble of space around you so for the same reason I ignore speed limits if I have to accelerate to get into clear space.

Which will be all the impetus the Government needs to demonstrate that road pricing needs to be introduced on minor roads too. Even more ANPR cameras.

If you're right (and I think you might be) about people being prepared to accept congestion in favour of actually paying to use the quicker route, it rather puts the lie to Howard's argument that people want clearer roads.

As for average speeding fines on motorways, I also think that's inevitable. A good source of easy money. They've been doing it in France for some time I believe. When they introduce speed limiters in cars, what's the betting that the controlled max is actually greater than the prevailing speed limit? They'll say it's to allow safe acceleration in dangerous situations, in fact it'll be ensuring they get a steady stream of fine income from people doing 73mph in a 70 limit.

From what I read, the limiter can be overridden anyway for precisely the reason you've mentioned:

"You can override the system by pressing hard on the accelerator, but the system will reactivate every time the car is started. However, the speed limiter will send haptic, audio and visual warnings until you start driving within the speed limits."

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/content/news/mandatory-speed-limiters-on-uk-cars-from-2022

This might be the solution: attach to the roof or roll bar for swift activation if the car breaks down on a smart motorway....

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B082F4S...HG8F662T27GTMYE?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

Probably illegal, but it might attract the Highways people more quickly than anything else. I'd prefer Blue and Red, but that would really upset the authorities....

ITV had an excellent programme on Smart Motorways (7:30pm) this evening. Including an appearance by TM’s own Mr Bleazey.