UKH

Has anyone been involved in the design of smart motorways or have any insights to offer?  What I am really interested in is the safety case, but I doubt any of the documents are in the public domain. My searches so far haven't produced anything particularly enlightening. 

They are safe, end of story.

Just FFS if your car starts misbehaving do not under any circumstances stop in the inside lane, drive on the hubs if necessary to get to a refuge.

Other than that perfectly totes safe.  100%. 

Panorama here:  youtube.com/watch?v=rahAv4-lOxM&.

Smart Murderways

I was not involved in the design, but I was involved in the consequences. 

Briefly, on the M1 just north of trowell services, I was in lane two looking for a space to move into lane three due to a slower car in front of me. All lanes were open. Then a car under-took me (admittedly probably not speeding.) and ploughed into a broken down car in lane one. The passenger of this car had got out and was trying to get over the armco fence. She was a fatality. My car was hit by the spinning car that hit them. I did all I could but my first aid skill did not go that far! A police car arrived and that car and another that arrived soon after closed the M1. Ambulances and fire brigade arrived some time after. The ambulance would have been there earlier if there had been an empty hard shoulder. (Admitted that it would have made no difference to the victim but it may have saved others from some emotional trauma!) The coroners report indicated that the car had been broken down for approx 10 mins and the lane closed lights didn't come on for approx 15 mins after the accident (The police had the motorway closed by blocking all four lanes with two cars which only took a couple of minutes.). The coroner recommended that corporate manslaughter charges be brought against Highways England. The second time this was recommended on this stretch of 'smart' M1. 

The police officer at the scene said he hated 'smart' motorways. They were not observed so breakdowns were always in active lanes. If an accident did occur, emergency services had to make their way through other traffic, instead of along the empty hard shoulder. He said they had used their cars to close the motorway so that they and the people involved were in a safer situation!

That is a very brief review of a very traumatic event for all concerned. If you want more details please ask, but not on the public forum!

A stretch of high speed road where a breakdown means you have a very short space of time to bale out of the vehicle before it's obliterated? What could possibly go wrong?

If you cant drive, it may be wise to leave the handbrake off and the steering pointed slightly away from the running lanes. That way, if anyone hits you from behind, there will be less impact, as you'll be pushed along and hopefully not pushed into the other traffic.

A quick search revealed this gem:

"The hard shoulder is not a safe place - more than a hundred people are killed or injured on the hard shoulder every year, and people stopping on them unnecessarily is an issue. Smart motorways effectively eliminate this risk."

Hmmm. Making the world a safer place, one weasel word at a time.

In a similar way we can eliminate all death by renaming it end of life.

The concept itself I get, and could be done effectively and safely if it was done properly.

Realtime monitoring of vehicle speeds by sensors and computers triggering signage for example.

However as usual it's been done as cheaply as possible, and there's nothing smart about them. And they rely on understaffed manual control rooms where costs are minimised.

It sounds like the original smart motorway plan has some merit. Only use the hard shoulder in peak traffic, and a refuge every 500m. 
All lane running, sounds like a dangerous cost cutting solution. 

Dynamic Hard Shoulder Running
This system is in operation on the M42, M1, M6, M4 and M5. Motorways with dynamic hard shoulder running have a solid white line to differentiate it from the normal carriageway. The hard shoulder must not be used (except in an emergency) unless the electronic signs say that it may be used as a running lane. The emergency refuges are spaced 500-800 metres apart.
All Lane Running
This type of Smart Motorway uses the hard shoulder as a permanent ‘live’ running lane for traffic and was first trialled on the M25. All running lanes have broken white lines, with the former hard shoulder lane only being closed in an emergency. On all lane running motorways the emergency refuges are spaced 2.5 km apart. This is the standard for all new Smart Motorway schemes from 2013 onwards3.

Smart Motorways - the stupidest idea ever.

I have always thought this was blindingly obvious from the start.  From having some of the safest roads in the world to this for transparently short-term financial savings...

It's not just that the hard shoulder provides a refuge, it also allows emergency vehicles to get through when there has been an incident and the whole road is blocked with stationary traffic.  It worked brilliantly and drivers very rarely abused it.  Now nobody is sure whether they can drive on the leftmost lane or not.

I've had a very sudden breakdown at speed on a motorway and was incredibly happy that the hard shoulder was there.

The thought of having to stop in a live lane terrifies me.

Having passed a couple of stationary cars in the hard shoulder under "smart" motorway conditions without a lane closed cross I don't trust them.

And I believe all the current claims about the better safety relate to this original design. Still have the hard shoulder most of the time unless its heavy and therefore probably slow traffic and add in the refugees and it is probably going to be safer than a normal motorway and still help traffic flow.

Does seem like a classic somewhat flawed approach which does work in certain conditions being used way beyond those limits.

I see you got a dislike for this. To be honest that would be my thinking as being the best way to dissipate the impact. Surely the more energy that can be converted to forward motion rather than being absorbed by the car and occupants the better?

I don't understand how anyone could have thought they were safe, yes they reduce the number of people killed on the hard shoulder because there is hard shoulder for them to be killed on, they're still dead though (along with a lot more drivers that pile into them wherever on the live motorway they happen to end up.)

But presumably some cynical minister of transport - could it have been Grayling? - thought that nobody would notice the increased fatality rate, they would just notice improved traffic flow (in between accidents.) You can imagine it in a pub now: 'And another thing! Ever since the Tories got in, driving down the M3 to my weekend cottage has been a breeze.' 

I think even talking in those sorts of terms gives a false sense of security. If a 44' artic crashes into you at 60mph any precautions you could take other than getting out of the way are going to be pretty academic.

Can anybody tell me what the difference is between a Smart motorway and a dual carriage way, the A50 between the M1 and Stoke for instance. Two less lanes appears to be the only difference.

I know folks who complain about the smart motorway section of the M6 but make no comment about the A50, when both seem to be just as 'dangerous' as each other. 

I rode my bicycle along part of the A50 the day they opened it, now that's something one cannot do on a motorway.

John Gresty

Me too. There's an audio recording (I think it might be in the panorama episode linked to by Bobling further up the thread) of a bloke calling the emegency number and telling the control room he's broken down in a live lane on a smart motorway with his wife and kids in the car. It ends with a huge bang that makes your blood run cold.

I think I'd be advising everybody to prepare to bale out as soon as the car stopped, belts off nearside doors open ready.  I've twice been in an overturned car and I imagine that being in a stopped car on a murderway would be equally as terrifying

I don't have the slightest sense of security about it. It makes it fractionally less likely you'll be killed or crippled, but it's not going to end well. Fractional gains...

The car being hit when you're halfway out of it is probably the worst possible scenario, but the increased risk of death for that short space of time drops to almost zero if you make it over the Armco.

I can't work out if the best option is to wait a couple of seconds (if the cars behind don't immediately hit you then there's a bit of a barrier behind you) before bailing out.

Interesting conundrum that I hope I never have to put into practice.

The lack of a hard shoulder is bad enough but also the signage is an absolute disgrace. I am regularly dropped to 50 or 40mph for no obvious reason then left in limbo with no further signs. I'm then bimbling along at 50 mph looking for cameras when slip lane traffic is coming on at 70mph. After 8.00pm is the worse time on the M1 around Sheffield every night accompanied with "cone exercises".

Not much difference except the dual carriageway will have all sorts of nasty little legacy junctions and lay-bys and less error detection/management.

FWIW I think it's the safety downgrade of the motorway network rather than the absolute safety that upsets people most.

jk

Not a lot which is the problem. A motorway requires higher safety standards than a dual carriageway. Its dragging motorways down to dual carriageway standard rather than the other way round.

The smart motorway has higher speed limits for HGVs/coaches/vans

I will not forget the sight of a Ford Ka in front of me piling into the back of a stationary lorry on a dual carriageway. I pulled over expecting to find a dead driver, instead luckily a girl who had cuts and was hysterical but nothing worse. The lorry's rear bumper finished roughly where a passengers head might have been... If that lorry has space to pull off...

At least on a dual carrigeway you'll always have one side of the vehicle to bale out of, either onto the verge or cental reservation.

I also think dual carrigeways, with additional hazards like roundabouts, vehicles pulling out of laybys, vehicles crossing  gaps in the central reservation etc. are a bit less attractive places for HGV drivers to  relax and watch porn on their phones..

If the car dissipates energy by moving, it will either swing left under impact if the wheels are turned to the left, hit the armco and the rear will swing across the moving traffic, or if wheels face right it will be pushed into the moving traffic. Wheels straight ahead and brakes on and in gear. The two vehicles involved with have greater damage but the risk of 'collateral' damage is reduced. I was collateral damage in the incident noted above!. The rear of the car swung towards my lane. I tried to avoid it and the lane of faster traffic on my right. Almost managed it, but not quite. Got hit by the impacted vehicles. Fortunately, I didn't panic and swerve or I could have taken out two more lane of high speed vehicles!

I think you need to be distinct between smart motorways and all lane running.

Smart motorways in general are a good idea as the variable speed limits reduce congestion.

All lane running, which uses the hard shoulder as an operating lane is the main issue that results in car crashes.

It will depend. The little ones near me sure but something like the A12 for much of its length is pretty much just a budget motorway and given the number of lorries heading to the docks I suspect quite a few relax on the way.

I briefly worked on designs for a few stretches of smart motorway/managed motorway/active traffic management (someone somewhere is presumably keeping themselves in a job by renaming the schemes periodically).

I did things like siting for message signs and the electrical infrastructure. Was a bit over 10 years ago now. I quit, cos the work was often very dull and also somehow infuriating.

The straw that broke the camels back was having to write justifications for aspects of a design that didn't meet the Highways Agency standards at the time. Basically it was too expensive to do, so they cut down the number of message sign gantries on that particular stretch. Any departure from HA standards had to have a document making the case for it (the process is designed more for situations where you have to put a sign a few yards away from where the regulations dictate, cos there's a bridge or trees in the way or something like that). Cost saving was not an acceptable reason for a departure from standards (even though this was the only reason in this case), so for every non-standard gantry placement I had to write an explanation of why fewer message signs was actually a good thing and made things safer, cos too many signs might be distracting or something like that. This was just a box ticking exercise, as the design had been approved by someone in the HA several pay grades above the person who had to approve the departure from standards documents.

A colleague told me the HA eventually pretty much gave up on standards for managed motorways and would just ask the contractor for what was affordable. She also quit eventually and opened a bakery. 

I once saw an interview on some news program with a representative from some sort of motorists lobby group saying smart motorways are just a cost saving measure. This is true, the original feasibility study for smart motorways basically said it was the best option, because adding an extra running lane is too expensive, and not doing it would just mean increasingly bad peak time congestion. Though it was noted that the running costs of smart motorways would eventually cancel out the initial cost saving. 

I don't recall the details of the cost/safety analysis, though I have been on the fringes of product safety in other jobs. Product safety (different from health and safety) is all about how safe something has to be, the likelihood of the design resulting in injuries/fatalities and the cost of improving the design. The law states that all 'reasonable' measures have to be taken. In order to quantify reasonable, a cost figure is generally assigned to each life that would be lost due to unsafe design. In product safety analysis that I've seen, that figure is around £2 million. So if for example, a product has a 1 in 10 chance of killing someone, but you could spend £200,000 to remove that risk, then legally you would have to do that. If you could only remove that risk by spending £1 billion, then you don't have to do it.

This might not be that relevant, and as I said I don't recall the details of the case for smart motorways, but I think it's an interesting insight into how decisions are made over what is considered safe enough. Its a bit reminiscent of Edward Norton's job in Fight Club, but bear in mind every time you step on a plane or a train, or drive down the motorway, someone somewhere has worked out how cheaply it can be made without coming too close to that figure...

Feel free to ask any questions, but as I said it's a long time since I was involved, and I was only a very junior engineer 

And if the car is on any form of slope ?????

Apart from the obvious road classification difference and therefore drivers should  expect to see <50cc bikes, cyclists tractors etc that aren't allowed on motor ways, they should also expect non-slip entry and exit points, roundabouts, traffic lights etc at least some of the time.

Heavier and towing vehicles have lower limits on A roads than M roads even if they are dual carriage ways

It almost sounds like you were lucky not to become a casualty yourself. A friend is currently stressed due to her family moving, and driving on the 'smart' M1 being required for her to see her parents, and her parents to see her brother apparently. I've suggested she could use it at weird times, like late at night, but I'm not sure if that fits in with everyday life, she wants to visit them for tea.

I guess statistically speak, one is more likely to be alright than to be in accident, but it shouldn't be something one has to think about really, given how the motorways used to be...

In Europe it is standard practice (in Austria I  think a legal requirement) that in stationary traffic you pull to one side to leave a central corridor for emergency vehicles. It feels weird at first as the inside lane pulls over onto the hard shoulder but does work.

​​​​​​Obviously doesnt fix the problems of not having a safe zone for broken down vehicles, but does mean that services can get to and deal with incidents more quickly.

Thanks, very interesting. What you describe doesn't sound like a great safety culture where affordability trumps meeting design requirements. From what I can see the safety of smart motorways is not underwritten by a formal safety case. The basic safety objective seems to be that they should be as safe as existing motorways, which doesn't seem to be very ambitious. (What's smart about them then?)

I have found two evaluation reports for two sections of the M25 (written by Atkins for Highways England). They look at three years of operation and conclude that safety is acceptable, ie comparable with conventional motorways. Because there are no instances of collisions with stationary vehicles in lane 1 the reports conclude that none of the accidents over the three years can be attributed to all lane running and would have happened anyway. 

I can't find the comparable reports for the M1 where lane 1 serious collisions have occurred, it would have been interesting to see if it is still being claimed that the basic safety objective has been met. I suspect you can claim anything depending on how you categorise things. 

The level of agreement on UKC that Smart Motorways are a spectacularly bad idea is noted! In the event of a collision where the car can still be driven I will be making for a refuge area. 

I've just done a motorway speed awareness course, and the woman running it said they were safer than normal motorway because they are monitored, either by computer or people. She said there hadn't been one death, obviously there has now.

The problem is people not taking notice of the signs I think, and there's a psychological thing about heading for what you can see, making drivers head into the hard shoulder when there's a car in the lane , which is what kills people staying in their cars.

I've always thought that "all lane running with no hard shoulder" stretches of motorway were an intrinsically bad idea. But what's really bad is that there's a system that automatically detects stopped traffic so that the warning signs can be sorted out pretty much in real-time.

The real killer (and I mean that both as a manner of speech and literally) is that this detection system is only on about a quarter (or maybe a third) of these stupid stretches of motorway. Personally, I think that someone who has suffered injury or a relative's death on these un-monitored stretches should sue the government, basically arguing that it's corporate manslaughter.

When I'm driving on these "all lane" stretches, I refuse to drive on the inside (ex hard shoulder) lane - long distance motorway driving is very monotonous and it's easy to have very brief lapses of concentration (or to be momentarily distracted) - I don't want the possibility of one of those coinciding with something stopped directly in front of me.

Need to stop on the motorway, then ask yourself one very simple question "am I driving a Sherman tank". Unless the answer is yes, get everyone out of the car and away from the carriageway FAST.

I think they can't depart too far from the script on these courses so you got the stock simplistic answer. Its been shown that there are camera blind spots, long distances between emergency refuges and operators who are only occasionally looking at the monitors because of their workload. It's clear it could be a safer system but corners have been cut. 

No she was very chatty and open for any discussion, my course being related to the motorway covered signs and the three different types of "smart motorways" ; 'All lane running' schemes, 'Dynamic hard shoulder' schemes and 'Controlled motorway' schemes.

She asked us, if we thought they were safe, most people didn't think they were safer, but she said they were.

In reality they are statistically safer.

https://www.rac.co.uk/drive/advice/driving-advice/smart-motorways/

I've remembered now, "Target Fixation" it's what causes some driver to veer into the hard shoulder when there's someone broken down in it, then crash in the back of them.

I'm sorry to hear about the accident you were involved with. I don't agree with hard shoulder-running and the camera monitoring is not good enough for what they are trying to achieve. 

May I ask did the accident happen during the construction phase of this part of the M1 motorway (hence the reference to climbing over armco in L1) or after it was completed (~2011) ?

I ask because, the M1 north of Trowel (J25-26 at ~ +200/000) is now a smart motorway in the sense that it has variable speed signage over the 4 running lanes, but it does have a continuous, permanent hard shoulder on both the north and southbound carriageways. This is the case for the entire 25km section widened around 2010 between J25 and J28. It was one of the first to be built, and effectively has HS+L1+L2+L3+L4 for the entire length. This makes it considerably safer than other smart motorways that use the hard shoulder as a running lane and have refugees (e.g M42). 

(The issue of no hard shoulder during the multiple year long construction period is also a serious issue that is rarely discussed)

Edit : This section of Smart Motorway is termed a 'Controlled Motorway'. There are variable speeds, but the hard shoulder should only be used in an emergency. Probably safer than a standard motorway. Shame they didn't build them all like that. Ref here :

: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/...

The problem is that mixes and matches several completely different things which is part of the issue with "smart motorway". However most people think of it as primarily the using the hardshoulder option.

Even there the earlier ones were safer. It was only intended for congestion so it would be running slower anyway and there was a refugee every 500m.

However that not bad idea has now been diluted into every 2.5km and using the hard shoulder more frequently.

Thats what people are talking about when using smart motorway.

£ is what it comes down to - repurpose the hard shoulder and the whole motorway is still the same width - no extra land to sort out, bridges still fit, etc.

Actually widen the motorway and you need to buy more land (£) or make embankments steeper (£) as well as the stuff under the tarmac for another lane each way (£).

And then you either need to have no hard shoulder under bridges (only ok with some) or replace bridges (£).

So extra capacity for less £ and a few untruths about safety.

That section of the M1 with 4+HS is how they should all be done - properly.

The cost of the M1 J25-28 widening was double the cost of the M6 Toll (per km). The traffic management alone (cones, signs, lads and supervision) was around £30million . 

Late on in the scheme, we had some traffic management under J25 running up to a bank holiday. We asked the highways agency rep if we could leave it on over the weekend (to save 40k and two days). Her response : 200,000 cars will use that junction over the weekend, would you pay 20p to teleport out of a traffic jam on a Sunday afternoon? Take it off. Value for money for the taxpayer. 

The costs of these schemes seem huge, but spread over the whole population over decades they’re tiny. Assuming that M1 scheme lasts 50years, it cost 10p per person per year. 

A costa coffee at Trowel services is about £3

I think Highways England will broadly be able to claim they are no more dangerous, although the M1 will probably be an exception, it does seem to have a  have a poor record, anecdotally at least.

But the bar is set too low, surely an objective of a smart motorway should be to enhance safety? As we know the problem with allowing driving in lane 1 is that it introduces a new major hazard of collisions with stopped vehicles. That is why my OP asked about safety cases, because I believe any meaningful safety assessment would quickly show that the frequency and consequences of such collisions are not tolerable. (At least if the objective is to enhance safety). It is not easy to engineer in mitigation, either. Illuminating a red cross on a gantry is no where good enough, things are happening too fast for that to be effective.

But isn't that statement just ignoring the facts, you've said "claim" as if it's not really true, and the used "anecdotally" as if that has more weight.

I know people "feel" they are less safe, I was one of them (and I'm prepared to be wrong given some evidence), and of course the details from the crash above are horrendous, but there are crashes on normal motorways and there have been plenty of people killed on normal motorway hard shoulders.

I saw a quote recently about how its difficult to built bear proof litter bins.  "There is a considerable overlap between the most intelligent bears and the least intelligent tourists".  

I'm sorry to speak ill of the dead, but if you break down on a motorway, hard shoulder or not get out of the car immediately and far away from the idiots in charge of heavy vehicles.  

I was initially in favour of smart motorways.  However people just ignore the lane closed signs. Its frightening.  People driving in this country overall are not clever enough or well behaved enough for them.  There isn't enough in the way of consequences for driving in a lane with an enormous X above it.  

Speed, speed limits, and number of other vehicles actions to concentrate on are all higher on motorways are they not? Or are smart motorways always running lower speed limits than normal?

One concern of mine would be that there's 2 middle lanes on a smart motorway which doubles the risk of an inter-lane overtaking/undertaking accident. Or aren't you allowed to do that (I don't live in the UK and haven't driven on one)?

I meant Woodall services. The case in question has just recently been in the press because the coroner has asked the police to look into corporate manslaughter charges. The case involved the Asian lady, not the earlier one with the two men. It was in September 2018! The work was complete and there were no roadworks. Lane closed signs were not lit up until well after the accident.

The main reason I was not injured, and didn't cause a lot of injuries was experience. I have taken advanced driving courses and, as a result, knew to avoid either braking hard (I had about 20m to react) or swerving hard. I tried to aim as far right in my lane as possible, and almost made it. The back of the accident hit my nearside front wheel and broke the steering on that side. I controlled the car into the 'lee' of the accident! From there on in it is a case of not wanting to recall events in too much detail.

Even the motorway police at the accident and afterwards said that 'smart motorways' or whatever name you want to give them, are serious accidents waiting to happen. They fear for their own safety as well as the publics.

In my case the X were not lit. The person was trying to get over the armco to safety at the time. (She was apparently not particularly mobile. As are lots of people. How long does it take to get a small child out of a car seat and over the fence? Money saving theories are good. Reality may be different. (Think of the easy options in climbing that are not used because once someone used it and had an accident! Same principle!)

Undertaking is not allowed in the UK. The rule is use lane 1 unless overtaking. Obviously everyone sticks to this rule at all times.........

Undertaking is not the act of overtaking on the inside but the activity that may result.  Misuse of the English language.  If you really do need the opposite of overtaking then undertaking would refer to being overtaken because of your own slowing down.

I don't disagree with you.  I've just been terrified of the number of people I've seen driving with the X lit up.  

They were sold to us that the X would light up as soon as it was needed.  I'm sure the technology is possible but as usual the way forward seems to be to make everything as cheap as possible.  

I'm sorry I've just realised I wasn't clear, my comment about getting out of the car immediately was referring to the man who phoned from in the car.  

In no way was I critical of the woman in the situation you were unlucky to see.  I hope you are ok, I have been at a fatal collision myself and it was a difficult experience.  

A friend of several of my friends died on a dual carriageway after breaking down and being hit by a lorry.  

The vital message is to get out as soon as possible and away from traffic.  

But I totally agree with you, despite being safe in theory, they are not for for purpose at the moment.  

I'm not a defender of smart motorways, though I would like to see the evidence.

Of course there are incidents "caused" by the all lane running with no safe space. Of course the police hate smart motorways because they have to deal with these incidents. There will always be examples. 

What we don't know is how many accidents didn't happen, because more running lanes means less congestion, less stopping and starting and hopefully fewer accidents. Unless you look at the whole of the data there is no way of knowing how many fewer accidents there had been.

Rather than looking at individual crashes we should consider the whole picture. Then if appropriate we could make the case to remove or modify smart motorways

If your car breaks down you can't always get to a refuge.  

I was luckily able to find a hatched area to stop when my car broke on the M25 during rush hour.  I was towed to a refuge by highways and waited there for the AA.

I was joined by a foreign lorry driver who was annoyed that the highways officer told him this was not a sleeping place.  Later a couple pulled into the refuge to ask me the way to (I assume) the Dover ferry.  They pulled back onto the motorway and I don't know how they made it alive.  

When the AA man was ready to tow my car from the refuge back on to the motorway the X was put up on the inside lane, but it made no difference to several people who almost hit us as we tried to rejoin the motorway.  

That is what I thought for a while but it is not actually true, or rather it is more nuanced than that. Obviously you are meant to be in lane 1 unless overtaking but if the lane to your right slows down to the point where it is slower than the lane you are on and you maintain the speed of your lane, you are not undertaking. You are in fact advised not to weave in and out of traffic to overtake in those circumstances.

That is also the case in any case where you are advised to stay in lane, to use all lanes and in average speed zones.

The situation is more interesting when dealing with a middle lane hogger going more slowly than surrounding traffic, but you could be done for careless driving or driving without due care and attention if you were doing something reckless. Doing 60 in lane 1 and not switching to a much faster lane 3 because someone doing 50 refuses to leave lane 2 is not reckless.

They need to be as advertised, someone watching at all times and closing the inside lane immediately if there is an incident. 

People who are too selfish or stupid to understand that X means closed should have their license removed.  

The lanes need to be only shut if there is really an incident to prevent the assumption that its just closed for no reason.  

There need to be more frequent gantries.  

Anything else simply isn't good enough.  

People who sit in lane 2 doing less than the appropriate speed while lane 1 is empty should be banned from motorways.  They should be made to pootle around on back roads for ever. 

Perhaps my choice of words was a bit funny. The reality is we don't have much hard evidence yet, as HE have indicated that three years worth of data is required to see trends. I have looked at two reports for the M25 which present 3 years of operating experience on two sections. These reports conclude that safety has not been degraded. We won't know the full picture until more of these reports are prepared.

I agree. My main point is that an objective of smart motorways should have been to improve safety, not merely maintain existing levels. Had that been the case I believe it would have quickly been apparent that driving in lane 1 was a bad idea and managed motorways would be a better option. It feels like an opportunity has been missed. 

There's no retraining of drivers either, although it's pretty self explanatory, I've not had any explanation of smart motorways, because I took my test so long ago. I also didn't know the penalties for disobeying the signs, which seem quite weighty, and rightly so, but not sure how this translates in real life. e.g. You can get banned, but how many people do?

It's almost 30 years since I last had a driving lesson.  

It's not exactly complicated, if you can read it says lane closed and if you can't it is a big red X with flashing lights.  

If someone can't figure that out they shouldn't be driving at all, let alone on a motorway.  

There's alaw against it, but I don't think anyone has been prossecuted yet.

Interestingly, undertaking, isn't against the law (so I've just found out). If you go onto the hard shoulder to do it then it is, but normally you might get away with it.

From the AA.

Is undertaking illegal? 

You may have heard that undertaking in the UK is illegal, however this is not the case. 

It is advised in the Highway Code that drivers should only overtake on the right, though this is not a legal requirement. There are however certain conditions where it may be safe to undertake on the left hand side, such as in slow-moving traffic. 

Undertaking can be very dangerous, especially at high speeds on the motorway. A driver may not have sufficient time to conduct adequate mirror check and safely pull in if another driver is approaching more quickly in their inside lane. 

Why on a motorway especially?

They're much safer than any other road type we have in the country.

They would be safer without idiots.  I suppose that's not entirely enforceable though. 

Definitely been tickets given out for middle lane driving, e.g. from Surrey Road Cops:

https://twitter.com/SurreyRoadCops/status/997212333335302145?ref_src=twsrc%...

I think lots of people have missed what I thought was the withering sarcasm that was obvious in this post.  Of course it wasn't obvious so I'll highlight it here.  I don't think they are safe, hence the comment about whatever happens get to a refuge area if you possibly can as you do not want to stop in a live lane!

YAY that's the first time I've ever heard of someone being prosecuted for it.

FTFY. The last thing I need is more old people in Honda Jazzes pootling up the A65 FFS!

Good point. 

Just answering a question! Very sorry.

Passing on the nearside any better?

there are a couple of specific examples that are in the highway code. I was referring to normal driving in free flowing traffic conditions.

Even in normal conditions, the actual wording is that you "should" not undertake. It is not directly disallowed, it's heavily not recommended. Whether you can be done for undertaking or not very much depends on the circumstances, as you would have to be done for either careless driving or driving without due care and attention, not for undertaking directly. Yes, coming behind someone fast and switching to the left lane to pass them you would likely get a bollocking at the very least if the police were to see you and stop you and in fact I do know someone who (driving like a tit) was stopped and got some stern words for doing exactly that. Doing the speed limit on the far left and, without altering your speed or heading, passing a vehicle on your right that for some reason has decided that the left lane is not to their liking (and is in fact actually breaking the law under those circumstances) is not problematic. The alternatives to that are far more dangerous, as they would be either moving two lanes over or slowing down your lane to the speed of the person on your right.

It's almost as though all lane running has introduced a new class of accident, "catastrophic" where the chances of survival are extremely low because of the relative speeds between the stopped vehicle and (worst case) HGV. I would put crossover accidents in the same bracket, ie about as bad as it gets. Most other motorway accidents offer a better chance of survival because of the lower relative speeds. These are the "serious" accidents. Crossover accidents are "tolerated" because they are infrequent. So my approach would be if you can't demonstrate that lane 1 collisions are as infrequent as crossover accidents, all lane running smart motorways cannot be justified.

Not against the law though So I can't see anyone getting fines for it.

You're unlikely to be fined for undertaking but, unless you are undertaking someone turning right, it is considered prima facie evidence that you are driving without due care and attention or are driving dangerously.

I think people just are not imaginative about very nasty situations which can arise when overtaking on the inside.  I'm not referring to the permitted passing on dual carriageways and motorways when there are streams of traffic travelling at different speeds.

An example of one thing that can happen is the closest I've come to an accident that would have almost certainly resulted in me becoming mince on the motorway.

I was overtaking lane 2, some guy in a massive pickup decided he wanted me out of his way and proceeded to ride half a metre from my rear bumper and flash all his lights. As soon as I got an opening to get back to lane 2, I took it... and someone had just decided to undertake lane 2 and join that gap from lane 1. The only thing that saved me as far as I can tell was that the pickup couldn't accelerate fast enough to get where I was on lane 3, as I had to swerve. 

Edit: I see this has gotten a dislike. What would you do differently in those circumstances? You have lane 2 going less than the limit, you have a free lane 3. As you are rejoining lane 2 past the slow vehicles, you see someone moving into the spot you are already half-way in from lane one and have to take evasive action.

that's exactly it - you get a coincidence of someone needing to make a quick judgement in a situation created by an idiot, already a dangerous situation, and that intersects with someone else taking a chance on ignoring sensible traffic rules.   Drivers should "design out" that possibility by following rules about overtaking that people in rapidly changing situations may have to depend upon.

Would the person being overtaken on the inside not also be 'driving without due care and attention' in most cases on the motorway?  Disregarding rule 264 of the Highway Code isn't a lesser offence than disregarding rule 268 is it?

264: "You should always drive in the left-hand lane when the road ahead is clear. If you are overtaking a number of slower-moving vehicles, you should return to the left-hand lane as soon as you are safely past."

268: "Do not overtake on the left or move to a lane on your left to overtake."

I guess that is where it becomes a judgment call for a traffic officer to decide which vehicle caused the dangerous situation to arise. I suspect that if an actual prosecution is to go ahead, further evidence form traffic cameras would be used.

Lets just call it a new beginning

If someone is close up to your arse, then you have to increase any gap between yourself and the vehicle in front - so that you can manoeuvre more smoothly if anything happens ahead - because obviously they're going to be in your arse if you have to do anything suddenly.

And don't allow yourself to be rushed into moving out of the lane, do it at the first opportunity when it's perfectly safe to do so.

I know it can be difficult sometimes, but try really hard to not get yourself flustered or rushed by w**kers on the road.

Yeah, I think I had been driving for about a year at the time and I was driving a Ka, I certainly got intimidated by having a massive vehicle on my arse.

Disregarding either rule is not of itself an offence: the absence of the words "MUST" or "MUST NOT" in the rules indicates that there is no specific offence committed by failing to comply.  It's all explained in the introduction to the Highway Code: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/the-highway-code/introduction

Many of the rules in the Code are legal requirements, and if you disobey these rules you are committing a criminal offence. You may be fined, given penalty points on your licence or be disqualified from driving. In the most serious cases you may be sent to prison. Such rules are identified by the use of the words ‘MUST/MUST NOT’. In addition, the rule includes an abbreviated reference to the legislation which creates the offence...

Although failure to comply with the other rules of the Code will not, in itself, cause a person to be prosecuted, The Highway Code may be used in evidence in any court proceedings under the Traffic Acts (see The road user and the law) to establish liability. This includes rules which use advisory wording such as ‘should/should not’ or ‘do/do not’.

I think the average time to live if you broke down on the M25 and were stopped on the hard shoulder was between 20 and 40 minutes. 

According to a poster here a while ago; if an incident is reported to highways agency they drop the limits. The limits cannot be reinstated until a police unit has driven the stretch of motorway and verified it’s now clear. This is further muddied when people call in incidents via mobile phones and give inaccurate locations. 

There were 38 fatalities on the hard shoulder between 2011 and 2016. I can’t find what the total number of deaths were. 
 

There were 38 fatalities on Smart motorways between 2015 and 2020. This doesn’t say where on the smart motorway. 
 

That would imply to me that they are actually safer or no more dangerous. 
 

Although reports of near misses are up 20x. This could be due to the increase in monitoring or maybe ease of reporting?
 

They love to use this statistic in driving courses and the like, so I looked it up last time it was brought up as it sounded super suspect. It appears to be derived as the average time it took for an accident to occur to a vehicle stopped on the hard shoulder. That by definition removes from the average any car that stopped on the hard shoulder and was not in an accident, making it meaningless.

Depends how long they were stopped for I suppose. 

I don't really want to be "that bloke" but don't you check the lane you're pulling into is clear?

"Designing out" dickheads overtaking in the inside lane, by checking before moving over.

You do. You look left, you start moving in, and then someone two lanes across decides to do the exact mirror of what you're doing at the same time, as Sod's Law clearly states. Do you complete the entire lane change with your head turned left? And even if you were, it may be impossible to avoid a collision if the undertaker (heh) doesn't abort his manoeuvre too, depending on the new conditions around you as you do.

In other words, you cannot "design out" that scenario by just looking left before moving into a free space in the lane on your left.

We all should but have you seen all the research about people looking and not seeing ?  Plus in the specific case I was responding to the poster was in a pressure situation, the kind where mistakes are made.  Designing out is a strategy for avoiding dangerous situations arising or making dangerous situations more dangerous by supplying the last link in the chain of causation.

Checking before you change lane is not designing out or strategic, it is a tactic for better surviving an individual manoevre and it can go wrong but it is likely to work better if there is not an unexpected vehicle driven by an eejut moving at high speed into the space you've just checked.

If people feel free to treat an inside lane recklessly then you are introducing a single point of failure into moving left (given that most drivers are aware of having overtaken someone on the left as they pass them and can also see the vehicle in front in that lane if any and already have visualised the gap that should be there.   According to the Highway code you expect faster vehicles coming from behind when you pull out to the right and most people would expect this.  

That is all I have to say on this, based on observation made over decades of driving

btw - if you think overtaking on the left at speed is fine please could you give me a schedule of your travels in advance so I can avoid that road and time of day ...

do you have statistics for volume of vehicle-miles that produced those statistics for each type of road layout?

so we know the death rates per vehicle-mile per type of road layout?

What I was saying is, you don't just look once and move, expecting nothing to be there. Maybe it from years of riding a motorbike, you become hyper-vigilant, if you want to survive, if I'm changing lanes, I'd check, indicate, check again, check the front, check again. It all stems from self preservation, I'm not saying I'm better than anyone here, it's just what I do. I'd imagine anyone that rode/rides bikes for any length of time would be the same. Every roundabout is an opportunity for someone to cut you up, you plan for that, and most of the time, you already know the people who are going to do it.

I didn't say it was fine, so please let's not go over the top.

There are instances where it might be safer to carry on overtaking than pull out over two lanes to get past someone though, especially when it's pretty obvious they aren't going to move, and you can see far enough ahead to take evasive action, if they did.

Any one doing anything, at vastly different speeds to everyone else on the motorway, is a hazard, whether that's much faster or much slower.

No. But I would assume that vehicle miles have increased between the two periods. 

sorry, should have given you a after asking for your movements!

the main drift is to allow for people making mistakes, particularly under pressure

Fully agree with you. 

My driving instructor (Not for horse and cart as my offspring suggest)  way back in the late 60's always told me;

"Everybody on the road, bar me and thee, is an idiot! And I'm not sure about thee!"

I have driven many many miles and always try to remember that. If there is a one in a million chance of something happening it may happen. Just think, people spend money on lottery tickets and that is about 15 million to one chance of winning big!

No worries.

Defensive driving.

There is still an awful lot  more miles of hard shoulder motorways in this country compared to those turned into so-called "smart" motorways. This would seem to prove the reverse - that "smart" motorways are a hell of a lot MORE dangerous.

If it said in lane 1 of the smart motorways I’d agree. Maybe gantry cameras and mandatory lower limits have reduced other accidents.