This could be interesting.
dailymail.co.uk/news/articl … onths.html
Smart motorways, like all roads, need smart drivers.
they might need smart drivers but what they get is morons and lemmings who need a hard shoulder to sit out of the live lanes as a matter of common sense.
whoever thought up using them as running lanes wants shot as do the idiots who backed it.
all its doing is prolonging the agony of gridlocked england without providing a solution whilst putting drivers at risk.
i hope he widow wins her legal action,but itl be interesting to watch the ■■■ covering exercise as it unfolds.
I wonder how many of these deaths were preventable though. Don’t wish to speak ill of the dead but after some of the things I’ve seen it does make you wonder.
The two men in this article were exchanging details it says. Could they have done this up the embankment out the way perhaps ?
I know it’s not always possible and if they were hit within seconds of stopping then you’re fresh out of luck.
I rolled up behind a broke down car on the M6 between 6 and 5 a while back and being elevated we were both stuck up there. Was too busy for me to risk pulling out into traffic so I phoned the Highways and they were there in minutes.
The driver of the car though was just sitting in his car trying to get it to work. Then, when I told him it wasn’t safe he got out and stood about 3 feet in front of it. I said if a lorry ploughs into the back of mine now at 56 it’ll shove mine and your car straight into you. Let’s at least stand a safe distance in front. We were still exposed, we had no other choice but he didn’t seem to see any kind of risk in the situation he was in.
I see it all the time. People have a minor bump on an island and they both get out and exchange details in the middle of it. FFS just go somewhere safe. Or safer at least.
Terry T:
I see it all the time. People have a minor bump on an island and they both get out and exchange details in the middle of it. FFS just go somewhere safe. Or safer at least.
Maybe if we (the rest) shut our eyes for a few years, future generations will greatly benefit from it and will be grateful. Just sayin’… 
Mr Mercer’s widow, Claire, claims Highways England is responsible as it failed to provide her husband with a safe zone.
Yeah- no, lol
It’s a bit delicate because people have tragically died…, but quite honestly if I broke down on a busy smart M.way,(in a car that is) I’d be up that embankment on the grass faster than Hussein Bolt, ■■■■ exchanging details, that would be the last thing on my mind.
If people can not use common sense and self preservation instincts, wtf can anybody do??..other than making allowances for the not too bright.
It’s Darwinian innit? Remove the stupid from the gene pool. Can’t see the problem personally.
I had someone last week pull out, off the hard shoulder, straight into lane 1, didn’t even attempt to build up speed first.Helmet.The roads are full of divvies, made upto be going back on nights this week!
Four in 10 months… That might be more meaningful if we knew how many died on that stretch of road before it was smart.
Back in ye olden days, newspapers used to publish banner headlines after a bank holiday sayin how many people had died. It stopped when someone pointed out that bank holiday casualties were generally lower than on a ‘normal’ summer weekend, probably because so many were stationary in traffic jams.
the maoster:
It’s Darwinian innit? Remove the stupid from the gene pool. Can’t see the problem personally.
That’s exactly what I meant (but even I 
, am more tactful than you. 
)
I put on here a couple of months ago about this guy who was broke down in the roadworks of the M74 at Carlisle.
On one side of him was the central reservation, and on his nearside was a foot high steel section barrier blocking off lane 1 from lane 2, …so effectively it was.a 'passageway between two steel barrirers…hence no where to go.
Was he stood safely over the other side of the barrier in lane 1 ?
No…he was still sat in his driving seat flapping his arm about trying to wave traffic past, like artics approaching him at 50mph
An absolute f/whit of the highest order.
And before anybody asks, no he wasn’t trapped as a disabled person,.as my mate a few miles behind me got to him when the Police had arrived and he was stood (miraculously still alive) talking to them.
Terry T:
I wonder how many of these deaths were preventable though. Don’t wish to speak ill of the dead but after some of the things I’ve seen it does make you wonder.The two men in this article were exchanging details it says. Could they have done this up the embankment out the way perhaps ?
I know it’s not always possible and if they were hit within seconds of stopping then you’re fresh out of luck.I rolled up behind a broke down car on the M6 between 6 and 5 a while back and being elevated we were both stuck up there. Was too busy for me to risk pulling out into traffic so I phoned the Highways and they were there in minutes.
The driver of the car though was just sitting in his car trying to get it to work. Then, when I told him it wasn’t safe he got out and stood about 3 feet in front of it. I said if a lorry ploughs into the back of mine now at 56 it’ll shove mine and your car straight into you. Let’s at least stand a safe distance in front. We were still exposed, we had no other choice but he didn’t seem to see any kind of risk in the situation he was in.
I see it all the time. People have a minor bump on an island and they both get out and exchange details in the middle of it. FFS just go somewhere safe. Or safer at least.
The thing is did they stop in a live lane to swap details? Or was it a hard shoulder at the time being incorrectly used as a lane by the lorry? If it’s was the former then, and again not wanting to speak ill of the dead, but why would anyone stop in a live motorway lane to exchange details? I don’t know the facts but I’m just saying
halewood:
I had someone last week pull out, off the hard shoulder, straight into lane 1, didn’t even attempt to build up speed first.Helmet.The roads are full of divvies, made upto be going back on nights this week!
It doesn’t happen often but I’ve noticed this too.
Likewise people stopped at the end of a slip road indicating out so they’re st a standing start, normally a direct result of coming down a slip road and not looking properly for a merging point until the last second
Ever since the State decided to concentrate on more control and maximum milking of cash from it`s subjects, it was only ever going to go one way.
These roads are dangerous without question, an idiot would be able to see that, so it motivates me to question…Just who are the people that are stopping in what is a live lane to exchange details?
Why are they allowed to be in the general populace?
Why am I subjected to these kinds of people in my everyday working environment?
I know it sounds a bit me, me, me…But that is who I shall be thinking of when I am possibly arrested for the death of one of these suboptimal humans.
my mate in the late 70s ran into the back of a car on the A74 on the inside lane in the middle of the night killing the 3 occupants.
it had broken down with 2 of the passengers pushing it along the road completely obscuring the rear lights so they were basically invisible to traffic from behind.
he got completely crucified for the accident by the media ect but the argument of the retards pushing it from behind without thinking about approaching traffic didnt exactly cut the mustard.
the same lack of logic still applies today when you see wazzocks walking along country roads with their back to the traffic whereas common sense of survival would dictate you would walk facing traffic so you can jump into the field if required.
you cant educate pork so everyone suffers as a result.
halewood:
I had someone last week pull out, off the hard shoulder, straight into lane 1, didn’t even attempt to build up speed first.Helmet.The roads are full of divvies, made upto be going back on nights this week!
I had someone do that to me one Xmas Eve a few years ago on the M3- no option but to swerve left and shot past him on the shoulder. I was driving a fuel tanker at the time and there was zero chance of slowing and barely enough time/distance to get on the shelf - I just looked in the mirrors and saw the chaos starting as I cracked on.
Unfortunately, they drive amongst us…every sodding day 
On a smart motorway refuge areas are no more than 2 miles apart, on some it’s every mile. So to claim they couldn’t make it to a place of safety seems like a stupid claim unless at least one of their vehicles was a right off. Even then common sense would surely suggest (as the highway code states) that you leave your car and stand away from the carriageway and if possible behind a barrier.
They won’t scrap smart motorways, far too much money has already been invested in it, with even more to come.
The problem is that almost every driver has never been taught to drive on a motorway, as it only came on to the test recently, so most people don’t have a clue what they’re doing so don’t realise that they’re doing wrong.
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Cam belt failure, vehicle on fire, total electrical failure or many other breakdowns and you aren’t going one mile, let alone two.
You ain’t nipping over the barrier to safety on the M6 elevated either, unless you came prepared with parachute.
It musn’t be forgotten that many people have died on hard shoulders, again not exercising proper judgement and doing daft stuff like attempting to change offside wheels & just generally not getting out of their vehicles.
Would this woman be making a compo claim to the highways agency if this had happened on an A-road dual carriageway between laybys?
Smart motorways are not the ideal solution, however the ideal solution of physically widening our roads and building new ones is massively cost prohibitive so forget it. There would be absolutely no appetite in todays world to make that sort of further investment in road transport. It’s either smart motorways or stick to 3 lanes and the traffic jams.