This thread reminds me that somebody in a CPC course I attended recently was convinced that the EU was to blame for smart motorways. LOL 
rob22888:
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.
There is nothing wrong with smart M.ways, it’s the d/heads who use them that is the problem.
Those who turn them back into a 3 lane m.way by hogging lane 2 and ignoring the hard shoulder/lane 1…including some truck drivers who should know better.
A bit of common sense and extra care is needed when using them, that is all…especially in a breakdown scenario, those who fail to grasp that suffer.
robroy:
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.
It’s the M6 at that point mucker, I got sent to a live lane break down a few days ago, I pulled straight in front, slapped on a tow strap and dragged it into the services. The driver was happily sat in his car saying his recovery was on the way (60 minutes away!) Told him I wasn’t leaving him there, he was causing mayhem!