Reports of further deaths in the media today and I found a petition which some of you may wish to support:

 

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/570967

Signed

Signed 👍

Thankyou

Signed and sent a link to our local MP. 

We only live 2 miles away from junction 30 of the M1 where one of those awful incidents occurred. 

That stretch of motorway was bad enough before it was converted into a so called " Smart" motorway.

Imagine being on the outside lane of a normal motorway and your car cuts out, you have a fair chance of getting to the hard shoulder on the left but it’s still a very dangerous situation. What IDIOT decided to make a SMART MOTORWAY where there are NO HARD SHOULDERS at all. A massive car pile up is sure to happen if a car cuts out in ANY lane.

I have just signed this petition and hope everyone else does.

Dave

Signed and three other members of my household have signed.

Still only 183 signatures when I looked just now. Looks as if only us and our friends are signing!😀

I would have thought this would have a lot of support, but I guess the problem is getting it publicised, preferably by a well-known name.. There is one running at the moment to stop HS 2. That has Chris Packhams name behind it and gathered the 100,000 signatures needed for a Parliamentary debate in a couple of days.

I see South Yorkshire Police are reviewing the coroner's files following the recent verdict of unlawful killing in the 2019  M1 incident, to establish it there is a case for a criminal prosecution to be brought.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/ne!ws/uk-england-south-yorkshire-56069507

I'll sign.  I have found that whenever someone sticks the word "smart" in front of something, it invariably isn't.

Why don’t we all put it on Facebook that should get it moving.

Dave

 

At the risk of upsetting people in another petition thread...  I don't really get why a smart motorway is any more dangerous than a dual carriageway?  I've probably only ever driven on a road with a hard shoulder once as there are no motorways in Suffolk, just dual carriageways...speed limits are the same and if anything traffic is heavier due to the lack of lanes!

23 minutes ago, TomsFocus said:

  I don't really get why a smart motorway is any more dangerous than a dual carriageway? 

We're really talking about " smart" versus conventional motorway here, but that's a very reasonable point, Tom, though in my experience most dual carriageways outside towns tend to have a grass verge at the side and/or between the two sets of lanes, which you can get onto in an emergency. 

I, like many others it seems, feel that "smart" motorways are less safe than the conventional ones, all other things being equal. I mention that because defenders of "smart" motorways often state that "other measures" make them as safe as conventional ones, but fail to apply the logic that if you add the "other measures" to conventional motorways, they would be safer still.

 

54 minutes ago, Dave May said:

Why don’t we all put it on Facebook that should get it moving.

Dave

 

Good point. I'm not on Facebook myself but no doubt many on here will be.

Thanks for posting the link Eric, just signed now. 

I fully agree with the comments here, Smart Motorways are deathtraps!

The amount of times I've been in lane 1 following an hgv and suddenly the hgv has had to swerve severely into lane 2 as he has only just noticed a stationery vehicle in front of him  end result is because that happens so quick and because I can't see in front of the hgv in front of me I am suddenly faced with that stationery vehicle.

Good job I keep safe distance, but what a stupid idea smart motorways are.

Also the amount of times you see lane 1 and 2 half empty with everyone in lane 3.

Makes you wonder sometimes if we need that extra lane called the hard shoulder for anything other than a hard shoulder 🙂

https://www.rac.co.uk/drive/news/motoring-news/transport-secretary-claims-new-motorway-designs-are-anything-but-smart/?cid=eml-AC058_CHUB_CARSINS-CHUB_INSUR_A_W1_20210223_120914&utm_medium=email&utm_source=AC058_CHUB_CARSINS&utm_campaign=CHUB_INSUR_A_W1_20210223_120914&omhide=true&contactURN=47577025

I was a bit puzzled by this comment in the RAC article, which was also reported elsewhere in the media:

 

Mr Shapps told MPs that reversing work on smart motorways would mean acquiring land the equivalent of 700 Wembley stadium-sized football pitches, destroying swathes of Green Belt and buying up people's homes.

 

I'm assuming he meant if we left the 4 lanes in place and then added a hard shoulder? If you just converted the fourth lane back to a hard shoulder it wouldn't be necessary. 

29 minutes ago, Eric Bloodaxe said:

I was a bit puzzled by this comment in the RAC article, which was also reported elsewhere in the media:

 

Mr Shapps told MPs that reversing work on smart motorways would mean acquiring land the equivalent of 700 Wembley stadium-sized football pitches, destroying swathes of Green Belt and buying up people's homes.

 

I'm assuming he meant if we left the 4 lanes in place and then added a hard shoulder? If you just converted the fourth lane back to a hard shoulder it wouldn't be necessary. 

Yeah. That's what I thought too. It would be the easiest and quickest way to simply revert back to the original layout. 

https://www.rac.co.uk/drive/news/motoring-news/half-of-smart-motorway-safety-cameras/?cid=eml-AC058_CHUB_CARSINS-CHUB_INSUR_A_W1_20210309_115446&utm_medium=email&utm_source=AC058_CHUB_CARSINS&utm_campaign=CHUB_INSUR_A_W1_20210309_115446&omhide=true&contactURN=47577025

Increasing amounts of very worrying stuff on this topic in the press. I'd have thought it would send people looking for a petition, but apparently not - this has still only picked up about 450 signatures when I last looked.

9 minutes ago, Eric Bloodaxe said:

Increasing amounts of very worrying stuff on this topic in the press. I'd have thought it would send people looking for a petition, but apparently not - this has still only picked up about 450 signatures when I last looked.

Yes was thinking exactly the same as you, it seems plenty you speak to disagree, but it never seems to get past that

So this petition has still only picked up just over 2,100 signatures with 3 months still to run.

Given the wall to wall media coverage, heartbreaking stories from families of victims and calls for them to be banned from police, fire and rescue, etc it's puzzling that so few have picked up on this. 

I see evidence before the Commons Transport Committee now confirms that death rates for these are higher than normal motorways in the latest available figures - 2018 and 2019 - yet still Highways England and the Transport Secretary are failing to act.😠

 

Driver pulls over on fast lane of M1 to change wheel in Leicester causing congestion - Leicestershire Live (leicestermercury.co.uk)

They’ve not done that because it’s a smart motorway, they’ve done that because they’re ***** stupid, you can see the hard shoulder and even with a blowout the car would be able to get there.

What a stupid selfish thing to do 😬

Why try and take the whole wheel off as it's only the bottom part that was flat .......🤭

As a regular driver going about an ordinary commute I dislike smart motorways, but as a recovery operator I much prefer them as it's a lot safer when recovering a stranded vehicle, the lanes need monitoring more as when people break down it takes too long to get that particular lane closed, but I would rather recover a vehicle from lane 1 than the hard shoulder, nobody can drive in a straight line every now and then we all get a bit close to the lines in the road, I've lost count how many times I've been almost killed by someone drifting over into the hard shoulder, whereas with a lane closure it funnels the traffic slowing it down and speed limits being in place.

I do think they need to be reworked and more thought needs to be put into them though. So I am neither for or against smart motorways.

Interesting to get that viewpoint, hadn't considered that at all.