If I was you Winseer,.with all the trials,.tribulations and drama that seems to go on in your life, (not to mention your enigmatic logic on matters 
) 
, I wouldn’t even get out of ■■■■ bed in a morning, …then that way none of ‘them’ can get you. 
Got a couple of mates who work in Highways control rooms and have a lot to do with smart motorways, theyre all banging their heads against a wall about this. According to them, all the people calling for them to be scrapped are shooting themselves in the foot, because the cost of adding an actual extra lane is roughly around £100 million, per mile. So all lanes running smart motorways are a cheaper alternative to ease congestion more than anything else. So now we can all enjoy sitting in more traffic because theyre absolutely not going to spend what it would cost to widen the highways with extra lanes.
tierbirdy:
Got a couple of mates who work in Highways control rooms and have a lot to do with smart motorways, theyre all banging their heads against a wall about this. According to them, all the people calling for them to be scrapped are shooting themselves in the foot, because the cost of adding an actual extra lane is roughly around £100 million, per mile. So all lanes running smart motorways are a cheaper alternative to ease congestion more than anything else. So now we can all enjoy sitting in more traffic because theyre absolutely not going to spend what it would cost to widen the highways with extra lanes.
How can it cost £100 million a mile talk about rip off Britain
All they had to do when they converted the hard shoulder to a live line.
Was add another hard shoulder.
Just pour load of concrete down. Or worst case just pour a load of gravel so at least you have a run off area to get off the motorway.
They should of put the contact for these out to tender am sure some company’s could of done a better job cheaper and completed them on time.
But as ever it’s job for the boys
edd1974:
How can it cost £100 million a mile talk about rip off Britain
It certainly does sound a bit steep, but Im sure its easily racked up once you account for all the people involved wages and expenses, from the team who has to plan it in the first place, to the people who have to go out and check the new bit of land you want isnt inhabited by rare moths or something, then various meetings with the local authorities and all the people who live nearby who might object to it, and thats before we’ve even actually gotten anywhere near hiring some blokes (who only work Tues-Thurs 10am-3pm if they feel like it it seems judging by all the roadworks going on here that either have no workers in sight, or 10 blokes stood around doing nothing watching 1 bloke) to do some digging and tarmaccing, and I bet those machines they use for tearing up and laying new surfaces arent cheap! And dont forget all the drainage will have to be redone and moved out another lane, and all the utilities that might run under the new lane if they cant handle being crushed and shaken about by having thousands of vehicles thundering over them all day every day.
They should of put the contact for these out to tender am sure some company’s could of done a better job cheaper and completed them on time.
Yeah because that went really well during Covid where loads of companies popped up overnight, took the money and vanished, and definitely weren’t vested interests of various corrupt MPs 
Winseer:
robroy:
^^^^^^^
As I said,.the clowns who can’t OR WON’T use them properly is the problem, not the design of the road.
So do you also hog lane 2 on a 3 lane d/c also.
I know the answer btw,.the question was rhetorical,.I’m STILL.laughing at your dramatic and famous description of your truck as your… ‘‘Instrument of death’’
As for looking out for broken down vehicles… do.the aerials on your ‘‘Captain Winseer Tin Foil hat’’ , not pick them up like a radar system??
You shoud argue like that in the Guns debate going on around America…
“It’s not guns that kill people, but deranged TS lefties that have run out of Lithium-based medication - that do”…
It might make a lot less people vote Democrat that way, making future elections less easy to steal within the accepted 4% margin of error easily obtainable (currently) from missing ballot boxes, multiple voting permitted for blue incumbents, et al.
Ps. The only thing dead about the #instrument of death# site below - is the link.
“Using Smart Motorways Properly” amounts to “Not using them at ALL” as the smartest move available, as far as I’m concerned.
If I were to make a Tin-Hatted “Conspiracy Theory” out of it all (as you’d have it) - I’d argue that “I’ll not have silly people committing suicide in front of my truck, just to fiddle me out of my clean licence!”…
You’re a confusing one, as I’m sure you’re not quite as stupid as you sound
edd1974:
tierbirdy:
Got a couple of mates who work in Highways control rooms and have a lot to do with smart motorways, theyre all banging their heads against a wall about this. According to them, all the people calling for them to be scrapped are shooting themselves in the foot, because the cost of adding an actual extra lane is roughly around £100 million, per mile. So all lanes running smart motorways are a cheaper alternative to ease congestion more than anything else. So now we can all enjoy sitting in more traffic because theyre absolutely not going to spend what it would cost to widen the highways with extra lanes.How can it cost £100 million a mile talk about rip off Britain
All they had to do when they converted the hard shoulder to a live line.
Was add another hard shoulder.
Just pour load of concrete down. Or worst case just pour a load of gravel so at least you have a run off area to get off the motorway.
They should of put the contact for these out to tender am sure some company’s could of done a better job cheaper and completed them on time.
But as ever it’s job for the boys
Good to see we have a top class civil engineer on the site. Just pour a load of concrete down is surely the answer to many of life’s troubles
switchlogic:
Good to see we have a top class civil engineer on the site. Just pour a load of concrete down is surely the answer to many of life’s troubles
To be fair…
It’s worked incredibly well with the Mafia’s business plan over the years.
Worth mentioning, when we talk of “smart motorway”, there’s 3 veriations:
- Variable speed limits
- Dynamic hard shoulder (ie, can be used as a running lane when needed)
- All lane running
2 and 3 will always have the overhead matrix boards.
Personally for me, the reason the public have lost confidence is that the matrix boards simply don’t work properly. I am not sure if there’s some weird automatic system or people in control rooms watching CCTV monitors, but I’ve lost count of the number of times there’s a “report of obstruction” followed by miles and miles of 60 limits, only for it to be nothing. Or speed limits showing (for example) derestricted, then 60, 50, derestricted, 60, derestricted etc. In clear conditions.
The problem is, if the matrix boards “cry wolf” 95% of the time, people are going to not trust them, so that 5% (its probably lower) time they are actually correct, they’re ignored either by speeding or traffic in a closed lane. Or not traffic in the open lane 1.
And unless the system which detects stopped cars and closes lane 1 ie turns it into a hard shoulder, is 100% effective, its a “no” from me for all lane running. Let’s face it stopping on a hard shoulder is dangerous enough. And yes, dual carriageways are more dangerous. Its just a fact. Its worth mentioning the speed limits on non motorway DC are (in theory) lower for vans, which is basically ignored and not policed effectively.
edd1974:
How can it cost £100 million a mile talk about rip off Britain
All they had to do when they converted the hard shoulder to a live line.
Was add another hard shoulder.
Just pour load of concrete down. Or worst case just pour a load of gravel so at least you have a run off area to get off the motorway.
They should of put the contact for these out to tender am sure some company’s could of done a better job cheaper and completed them on time.
But as ever it’s job for the boys
As a lowly traffic officer with no engineering background, my observations on how the price will cost that is: all the cabling for the network technology runs adjacent to the hard shoulder, it will cost millions to reroute state of the art fibre optic cabling. All underpasses/overbridges will need widening, new bridges constructed over watercourses, gantries widened, junctions altered - both on the motorway and the local authority roads on the junction, then there is the price for the construction crews, materials etc, then the cost to the country in increased traffic tailbacks during the construction phase, it all adds up Then the tree huggers will get involved because of the construction phase going through wooded areas with trees being removed for the widening, increased traffic pollution during construction, wildlife habitats getting destroyed/disturbed. It would cause massive upheaval. Others more edumacated than me will be able to add even more to what I’ve listed. 
My Mrs has asked me to avoid dodgy bits (whilst in the family car) I know to be there from my shifts on the roads at work…
Places like J10-14 M1, the M42 near Shirley, or even the heathrow stretch of the M25…
At times like this - it is handy having a car that can go all the places that even a 7.5t cannot go, of course…
“Gantry Signs” are not the issue.
Merely the constantly flipping Hard Shoulder/Lane One/No Hard Shoulder at all set-ups.
You’re dead right BossHog. But the forward planning of those that plan these things amounts to zero. It’s the same here in Oz, where we have constant widening of roads that must cost a bloody sight more than if the roads had been made wider in the first place.
I hope they shut all these hard shoulders then we can go back to the good old days of queuing from Stafford to the M42 on the M6. Paid by the minute in my job.
Kerchinnnnng 
It never changes , the same posters who continually complain about the job being cut up , tearasses are now complaining that the suspension of new smart motorways is going to slow them up !!
No complaints from me, we were never likely to get them in ■■■■■■■ anyway!
Winseer:
My Mrs has asked me to avoid dodgy bits (whilst in the family car) I know to be there from my shifts on the roads at work…
When we head north my missus pays for us to go up the M6 toll as she hates the Birmingham stretch so much 
robroy:
What reminded me was watching one of those Traffic Police reality shows.
They run campaigns to educate people to leave their cars on the h/s, then they get drivers to sit in the back of their car when they pull.them over.
TBF, they do have better hazard lights than anyone else. I agree that it doesn’t outweigh the safety of a truck over a police car, but someway towards sitting in the back of their car over being behind the barrier.
dozy:
It never changes , the same posters who continually complain about the job being cut up , tearasses are now complaining that the suspension of new smart motorways is going to slow them up !!
I’ve read the thread again and found no evidence of that.
stu675:
dozy:
It never changes , the same posters who continually complain about the job being cut up , tearasses are now complaining that the suspension of new smart motorways is going to slow them up !!I’ve read the thread again and found no evidence of that.
Nor me either tbh, (being one who always treats tear arse stress heads with the contempt they deserve. )
My take on it is nowt to do with holding me up…I’m on an hourly rate ffs, it’s more the fact that there is no need to do away with them, they are fine as long as you take a little extra look out,.and know how to use them properly without hogging lane 2 being on some kind of misguided crusade a la Winseer piloting his ‘instrument of death’ …that still cracks me up.
robroy:
stu675:
dozy:
It never changes , the same posters who continually complain about the job being cut up , tearasses are now complaining that the suspension of new smart motorways is going to slow them up !!I’ve read the thread again and found no evidence of that.
Nor me either tbh, (being one who always treats tear arse stress heads with the contempt they deserve.
My take on it is nowt to do with holding me up…I’m on an hourly rate ffs, it’s more the fact that there is no need to do away with them, they are fine as long as you take a little extra look out,.and know how to use them properly without hogging lane 2 being on some kind of misguided crusade a la Winseer piloting his ‘instrument of death’
I’m in lane 1.
The gantries say that the hard shoulder is now lane one, and if I stay put - I am in lane two.
I stay put in lane two then - because if I go around the next left bend in the motorway, and a broken down vehicle is sitting there - I’m not going to be whacking him up the arse at 50mph because I thought “obeying the signs immediately” was the safe and decent thing to do, when in fact “Staying in lane 2” is perfectly legal for me to do as well, and doesn’t run the risk of killing anyone to boot.
The number of people broken down on “temporary” hard shoulders that HAVE been killed - is testament to the simple fact here that “driving safely” requires a brain, rather than a clocking in card mentality…
No doubt the artic driver that went up this Toyota’s arse “on the limiter” - thought it was a good idea to immediately get into the hard shoulder, now that it had been marked as “Lane One” - Use Hard Shoulder".
He’ll spend the rest of his life knowing that because he was a small-minded idiot, he’s killed an 8-year-old kid.
No thanks. I’ll keep driving in lane 2 if the sign “use hard shoulder” comes up. Lane 2 does NOT have a red ‘x’ under it after all! 
It’s actually not perfectly legal to stay in lane 2. I’m surprised that you don’t know this.