…no shit. The moment I heard of this concept years ago it sounded like a terrible idea.
Indeed.
When they were announced I thought it sounded like a bad idea.
Then when they started rolling them out (an embuggerance in itself), it seemed like an awful idea.
But then I used one and knew it was.
Everything that has come out since about them confirms it.
National Highways says the radar detects 89% of stopped vehicles - but that means one in 10 are not spotted.
At least 79 people have been killed on smart motorways since they were introduced in 2010. In the past five years, seven coroners have called for them to be made safer.
National Highways’ latest figures suggest that if you break down on a smart motorway without a hard shoulder you are three times more likely to be killed or seriously injured than on one with a hard shoulder.
No brainer. But then they quote this prick without directly challenging the contradiction:
The agency’s operational control director Andrew Page-Dove says action was being taken to “close the gap between how drivers feel and what the safety statistics show”.
The ‘gap’ seems to be a result of drivers having a much more accurate perception than the people paid to defend them.
National Highways says reinstating the hard shoulder would increase congestion and that there are well-rehearsed contingency plans to deal with power outages.
Just add more lanes. That’ll work. It’s never worked but obviously it’ll work. Fuckwits.
The agency’s operational control director Andrew Page-Dove says action was being taken to “close the gap between how drivers feel and what the safety statistics show”.
This sounds like a threat
Weren’t “smart” motorways originally just supposed to be automatic detection of traffic to apply temporary speed limits and reduce traffic? When did the ‘while we’re at it turn the hard shoulder into an extra lane to save the cost of expanding’ plan get tacked on?
