Smart Motorway NEAR MISSES

jakethesnake:
And as I said drivers who are too close think they are ok. Only a fool breaks the 2 second rule. :unamused: The 2 second rule is a minimum distance for an alert car driver and not for a truck especially a loaded one. :unamused:

i was ok, i didn’t crash. it was an incident, it was close… are you god ? immune from traffic incidents

I’ve had the same number of near misses as I’ve had on dual carriageways which is precisely zero. Perhaps I don’t do enough miles?

Never had a near miss as such, but as others on the same stretch of road have had to do, have taken safe evasive action multiple times over the years, most were on the west mids section M6 mainly because it was my most travelled motorway for many years, even at 50mph its surprising just how quickly you are closing on a stationary vehicle.

The argument that a so called smart motorway is no different to a dual carriageway is just plain wrong.
On one you can expect pedestrians, farm implements or other slow moving equipment, bicycles, roundabouts, laybys, cross roads and various other junctions, entrances into private residences as well as business premises so all the various vehicles that service each sort.

Juddian:
The argument that a so called smart motorway is no different to a dual carriageway is just plain wrong.
On one you can expect pedestrians, farm implements or other slow moving equipment, bicycles, roundabouts, laybys, cross roads and various other junctions, entrances into private residences as well as business premises so all the various vehicles that service each sort.

I get that my friend, but the inevitable counter would be “are you saying that a driver on a D/C is in a high state of alertness, whereas on a motorway they are relaxing?”

Not buying it mate, the only person relaxing on ANY road and not giving it 100% attention should be your passenger(s).

keepthefaith:

jakethesnake:
And as I said drivers who are too close think they are ok. Only a fool breaks the 2 second rule. :unamused: The 2 second rule is a minimum distance for an alert car driver and not for a truck especially a loaded one. :unamused:

i was ok, i didn’t crash. it was an incident, it was close… are you god ? immune from traffic incidents

I am glad you are ok but unfortunately it doesn’t always work out that way. No I am not god but I reckon I’m fairly aware of the near misses that happen and that could have been avoided.
As has been said some drivers have them and some don’t.

It may depend on the style of driving. :question:

This thread belongs in MAD MAGAZINE…
I have never read so much piffle as I have from self acclaimed Professional HGV Drivers and how they operate Large Vehicles with so much deficiency in knowledge and skills.

Before you can calculate a safe following distance you need to know what your braking distance is for the speed you are travelling at.
Simplest way is to use one second of time for every ten miles per hour of speed.
Easy to compute, when the vehicle in front of you passes a stationary object, count 1- 1000, 2-1000, 3-1000 etc, if you get to the stationary object before your required count you are following too close. Which means you are a collision waiting to happen. At 40 mph you are travelling at 58.5 ft per second which means your braking distance including reaction time is 234 ft, At 60 mph you’re braking distance increases to 360 ft. Which also means at 60 mph you should not be following the vehicle in front of you any closer than 6 seconds. It should also be remembered that if you can’t see the mirrors of the vehicle in front of you the Driver can’t see you and probably doesn’t know you are there.(Which is a good plus for cameras instead of door mirrors)I know there will be some who will say if I leave that amount of distance between vehicles I will never get anywhere !! That statement is a figment of your imagination, travelling at any speed it will take you a certain amount of time to go from A to B. Regardless of how many vehicles pull in front of you the time will be the same which is related to speed !!

dont you just love conor ? , the ultimate perfect trucker , he knows it all , been there , done it all , got the 't ’ shirt, yaaaaawn .

yaaawnnn

Smart motorways are as smart as cruise liners with no life jackets or life boats on-board, because they have now installed satellite communications.

gingo:
dont you just love conor ? , the ultimate perfect trucker , he knows it all , been there , done it all , got the 't ’ shirt, yaaaaawn .

I thought you said Prefect at first, which made me laugh. Remember them at school :laughing:

keepthefaith:
that’s utter Tosh, in the blink of an eye a lorry in front of me swerved into lane two around Sheffield, leaving me smoking my tyres to slow down and avoid a stranded vehicle ,And i had a safe distance ,it was close it was very close…

Sorry but if thats an accurate description of the events, especially the smoking tyres, then no you didn’t have a safe distance.

Sabretooth:
This thread belongs in MAD MAGAZINE…
I have never read so much piffle as I have from self acclaimed Professional HGV Drivers and how they operate Large Vehicles with so much deficiency in knowledge and skills.

Before you can calculate a safe following distance you need to know what your braking distance is for the speed you are travelling at.
Simplest way is to use one second of time for every ten miles per hour of speed.
Easy to compute, when the vehicle in front of you passes a stationary object, count 1- 1000, 2-1000, 3-1000 etc, if you get to the stationary object before your required count you are following too close. Which means you are a collision waiting to happen. At 40 mph you are travelling at 58.5 ft per second which means your braking distance including reaction time is 234 ft, At 60 mph you’re braking distance increases to 360 ft. Which also means at 60 mph you should not be following the vehicle in front of you any closer than 6 seconds. It should also be remembered that if you can’t see the mirrors of the vehicle in front of you the Driver can’t see you and probably doesn’t know you are there.(Which is a good plus for cameras instead of door mirrors)I know there will be some who will say if I leave that amount of distance between vehicles I will never get anywhere !! That statement is a figment of your imagination, travelling at any speed it will take you a certain amount of time to go from A to B. Regardless of how many vehicles pull in front of you the time will be the same which is related to speed !!

By the time most drivers have worked out in their head such math - This is more likely to happen.

“Watching your tablet” or “Checking your banking app” or “answering your phone” are all just as distracting as working out math in one’s head in a daydreaming state, because they all have in common complete distraction from the road ahead.

I’ve got a better idea: Pay drivers with clean licences more, as they are clearly paying more attention to the road - if they never set off a speed camera in their lives!
Then, don’t moan about other drivers’ bad driving - report it and film it, otherwise it’s just another “Fish Story”. :neutral_face:

…Then there’s “Too much clutter in your windscreen”…

How TF could anyone NOT be aware of a T-boned car right in front of your cab, what with silly mirrors and all?

the maoster:
Not buying it mate, the only person relaxing on ANY road and not giving it 100% attention should be your passenger(s).

Going to need a lot of rest areas…

“Attention span refers to the time that an individual concentrates on a task without losing focus to distractions. In essence, a measure of attention span incorporates the time spent on performing an action continuously or on sustained attention. Human beings have different attention spans based on various factors, such as age and cognitive capacity (Smid et al., 2006). According to a research conducted by Cornish and Dukette (2009), the attention span for adults is approximately twenty minutes.”
Source:
academia.edu/8749503/Attent … _in_Adults

I don’t drive on motorways much but I have made multiple calls to the police to report unsigned obstructions. If you see one - report it - don’t assume somebody else will. My calls have always been gratefully received on this matter; mostly as a first notification.
Smart motorways do not work as intended.

Smart motorways do not work as intended.

Ha, neither do a lot of drivers. :unamused:

That’s why we never have major accidents on non smart motorways or any other roads. Nowt to do with drivers. Blame everything else. :wink:

jakethesnake:
Smart motorways do not work as intended.

Ha, neither do a lot of drivers. :unamused:

That’s why we never have major accidents on non smart motorways or any other roads. Nowt to do with drivers. Blame everything else. :wink:

Straw man argument.

Winseer:

Sabretooth:
This thread belongs in MAD MAGAZINE…
I have never read so much piffle as I have from self acclaimed Professional HGV Drivers and how they operate Large Vehicles with so much deficiency in knowledge and skills.

Before you can calculate a safe following distance you need to know what your braking distance is for the speed you are travelling at.
Simplest way is to use one second of time for every ten miles per hour of speed.
Easy to compute, when the vehicle in front of you passes a stationary object, count 1- 1000, 2-1000, 3-1000 etc, if you get to the stationary object before your required count you are following too close. Which means you are a collision waiting to happen. At 40 mph you are travelling at 58.5 ft per second which means your braking distance including reaction time is 234 ft, At 60 mph you’re braking distance increases to 360 ft. Which also means at 60 mph you should not be following the vehicle in front of you any closer than 6 seconds. It should also be remembered that if you can’t see the mirrors of the vehicle in front of you the Driver can’t see you and probably doesn’t know you are there.(Which is a good plus for cameras instead of door mirrors)I know there will be some who will say if I leave that amount of distance between vehicles I will never get anywhere !! That statement is a figment of your imagination, travelling at any speed it will take you a certain amount of time to go from A to B. Regardless of how many vehicles pull in front of you the time will be the same which is related to speed !!

By the time most drivers have worked out in their head such math - This is more likely to happen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eojhtc6Wvsw

“Watching your tablet” or “Checking your banking app” or “answering your phone” are all just as distracting as working out math in one’s head in a daydreaming state, because they all have in common complete distraction from the road ahead.

https://www.kentlive.news/news/kent-news/driver-dies-after-a2-crash-7428224

Man arrested after Medway lorry driver dies after crash on A2 near Dartford

I’ve got a better idea: Pay drivers with clean licences more, as they are clearly paying more attention to the road - if they never set off a speed camera in their lives!
Then, don’t moan about other drivers’ bad driving - report it and film it, otherwise it’s just another “Fish Story”. :neutral_face:

…Then there’s “Too much clutter in your windscreen”…

How TF could anyone NOT be aware of a T-boned car right in front of your cab, what with silly mirrors and all?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbeIMOELFy4

There is no math involved, I had to show distance per second so it could be understood, by those of your caliber.
Just remember you need 1 second of time for each 10 mph, IE, 3 seconds for 30 mph, 4 seconds for 40 mph, 5 seconds for 50 mph 6 seconds for 60 mph … But hey, its your life in your hands, I just hope someone else doesn’t loose theirs because of you inability to comprehend.

Motorways aren’t the problem, drivers are

switchlogic:
Motorways aren’t the problem, drivers are

there was a documentary on the tv recently might of been panorama can’t remember, Anyway the people involved in the concept of smart motorways where intervied and it was stated on the program that they are unsafe …So no it’s not the people who use them that’s the problem it’s the design and that was from the horses mouth

keepthefaith:

switchlogic:
Motorways aren’t the problem, drivers are

there was a documentary on the tv recently might of been panorama can’t remember, Anyway the people involved in the concept of smart motorways where intervied and it was stated on the program that they are unsafe …So no it’s not the people who use them that’s the problem it’s the design and that was from the horses mouth

The driver is in charge of his/her own vehicle, so they can be held to blame for any incident.
But any driver is going to be less likely to have an accident in a well designed vehicle, and on a well designed road.

You can`t blame the road for being responsible for an accident, but better roads do mean fewer accidents.

The smart motorways, as rolled out, were not the same as the smart m-ways tested and approved in trials.
Modifying them is obviously costing more than if the job had been done correctly in the first place. (Hardly a shock.)

AnotherDriver:
Over the past year ive had 4 serious near misses on the smart motorways. ALL of the them have been vehicles broken down in the left hand lane of a four lane smart motorway with NO warning signs from the overhead signs.
Most of them have been last second swerve out of the way jobs or brake hard and hope that the vehicles behind see the danger and come to a complete stop! This type of scenario has become a common problem and im now extra vigilant and make sure im not too close to the vehicle infront, which i see all the time, especaially with a convoy of hgvs, its a disaster waiting to happen.

In reality leaving a safe enough gap just invites a car to fill the space which happens most of the time.
As a result, sometimes i actually drive in the second lane of a smart motorway especially at night.
Our motorways have become more dangerous because of this

How many near misses have you had?

What sort of things have you seen on smart motorways?

You’re a ■■■■ driver