Not so smart. Especially when they use the 60mph rounders.
Today coming up the M1 in my car I have 3 lanes of elephants racing at 56mph. That leaves lane 4 with Mavis and Mildred who are too scared to overtake them, their speedometer says they are doing 59mph but are not making any progress.
All it does is creates a huge road block, the reason for the 60 limit, queuing traffic A38 Southbound
To be fair the M1 has been ■■■■■ since way before it was turned into a dumb motorway. Especially around J24 to J31.
Although I’m sure Elephants are not allowed to use the motorway their top speed can’t be much[emoji23]
There not smart motorways there revenue motorways.
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With speed cameras that scare the ■■■■ out of you at night when they go off! It’s like an epileptics worst nightmare
Smart motorways might work better if there were more smart drivers but they seem in short supply these days!
M62 between 26 and 27 always down to between 40 and 60 including sunday mornings the reason for the queues are the speed restrictions
The problem is not the smart motorway, but the 3 “professional” HGV drivers, blocking 3 lanes.
The problem is both
The real Biffo:
The problem is not the smart motorway, but the 3 “professional” HGV drivers, blocking 3 lanes.
Nope
The real Biffo:
The problem is not the smart motorway, but the 3 “professional” HGV drivers, blocking 3 lanes.
3 professional drivers you mean screwdrivers were only professional when something goes wrong [emoji23]
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SuperMultiBlue:
The real Biffo:
The problem is not the smart motorway, but the 3 “professional” HGV drivers, blocking 3 lanes.Nope
More like the problem is 3 lanes supposedly only meant for overtaking only.All of which being subject to the same strictly enforced speed limit around the same as if not less than the single carriage NSL and the ‘proper’ truck motorway NSL.That’ll work.‘Smart’ motorways for those who think that a 55 mph real world speed regime,for the privilege of getting caught between junctions in a massive traffic stoppage for whatever reason or at best get nicked for speeding or blamed for lane hogging,is worth it.It probably also explains why people are creating and happy to sit in massive queues on the approach roads to/from the London end of the A3 so as to avoid using the M3.
Accident on the M1 smart section between 17 and 16 southbound, this was last week or week before circa 5.30 am, all 4 lanes solid for probably 4 miles (i was going north).
Somewhere in the middle of that queue was the ambulance on blues belting down the hard shoulder at 60mph to reach the victims…er no he wasn’t he was doing less than walking pace trying to weave between the lanes.
So, to round it up, difficult for the old bill through in a car to get to the scene, much more difficult for the ambulance, nightmare for the fire service cos bigger innit and finally im-bloody-possible for the wrecker to get through to clear the mess up so everyone can get going again.
Bravo
Now i have no doubt some bugger here knows…the bod that came up with the smart motorway brainwave, did heshe get a knighthood out of it, a national league balls up like that costing £millions has to be worth a gong or maybe a peerage 
Car driver looks to have mistaken lane 1 as hard shoulder. Stopped for a rest. Didn’t end well, no loss of life thankfully.
Juddian:
Somewhere in the middle of that queue was the ambulance on blues belting down the hard shoulder at 60mph to reach the victims…er no he wasn’t he was doing less than walking pace trying to weave between the lanes.
I’ve never fully understood why, in such circumstances, the emergency services can’t enter the motorway at the junction after the accident and travel the wrong way to the scene.
njl:
Car driver looks to have mistaken lane 1 as hard shoulder. Stopped for a rest. Didn’t end well, no loss of life thankfully.
He’s bloody lucky it was only a van that hit him. Would have been completely different if one of us had hit him.
Stupid idiot.
Stanley Knife:
Juddian:
Somewhere in the middle of that queue was the ambulance on blues belting down the hard shoulder at 60mph to reach the victims…er no he wasn’t he was doing less than walking pace trying to weave between the lanes.I’ve never fully understood why, in such circumstances, the emergency services can’t enter the motorway at the junction after the accident and travel the wrong way to the scene.
Now you are reverting to using common sense, sadly that went out of fashion some while back.
The real Biffo:
The problem is not the smart motorway, but the 3 “professional” HGV drivers, blocking 3 lanes.
Exactly this.
I do think smart motorways work well and when they don’t it’s when they aren’t being used properly by drivers.
For example lots of lane changing course congestion, particularly around junctions. So the smart motorways give us an extra lane at junctions which become a lane just for the junction, or when joining it becomes an extra running lane. What do a lot of cars do? Rather than looking at the signs to see that lane is open, all they can think about is getting into lane 3 or 4 as fast as possible to race everyone and force there way into a “gap” that’s not there causing the vehicle they’ve just cut in front of to brake, and the one behind, and the one behind, and the one behind. 4 or 5 vehicles doing that and you’ve just reduced the speed of the motorway for everyone. The smart motorway has the extra lane open so the joining vehicle can stay in that lane for as long as needed for everyone to sort themselves out and maintain gaps and maintain speed, thus easing congestion.
The problem with smart motorways is humans not using them correctly. And yes that goes for cars, vans, and “professional” drivers.
waddy640:
Stanley Knife:
Juddian:
Somewhere in the middle of that queue was the ambulance on blues belting down the hard shoulder at 60mph to reach the victims…er no he wasn’t he was doing less than walking pace trying to weave between the lanes.I’ve never fully understood why, in such circumstances, the emergency services can’t enter the motorway at the junction after the accident and travel the wrong way to the scene.
Now you are reverting to using common sense, sadly that went out of fashion some while back.
+1.
Me learned friend has it in one.
A few weeks back there was another one, A14 west just before A508, the accident was literally 400 yards before the junction and no one could get through the queue back past Kettering, an easy reverse down to the blocked road scene for the wrecker from the 508 itself, who instead when i passed eastbound was battling from Rothwell through the miles of standing traffic.
If we could get a senior officer type, you know the sort dazzling in medals and gold braid, maybe someone who would watch from the safety of his locked car as one of his real genuine salt of the earth coppers was being fatally attacked by low life scum (not as this scenario could possibly happen you understand 
), someone like that would at least be doing something useful before drawing a gold plated pension us plebs could only dream of.
Stanley Knife:
I’ve never fully understood why, in such circumstances, the emergency services can’t enter the motorway at the junction after the accident and travel the wrong way to the scene.
Just think about it for a second:
999 calls start coming in within a minute of the collision occurring, and the emergency crews immediately start making their way to the scene. At what point are their controllers able to say with any certainty that the road is totally blocked with no possibility of traffic getting past? Or would you have the ambulances etc wait until police have the scene under control before attempting to get there?
Even in these days of CCTV coverage, until you have someone at the scene you can’t be certain that one of the vehicles involved won’t be moved, allowing traffic to start flowing again.
Recovery vehicles are a different question though - they are not normally called until the scene is under control. They sometimes do get directed to attend “the wrong way” - but it’s quite rare because of the potential consequences if it goes wrong.
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