Thursday, 12 March 2020

Smart Motorways and their future

         
   

                                      Smart Motorways


Smart Motorways were created by turning hard shoulder into live lane so you have an extra motorway lane keep traffic moving. ie 3 lanes now become 4 lanes.  If hard shoulder can be turned on or turned  off, then its known as Dynamic hard shoulder. This type of dynamic hard shoulder causes additional confusion among drivers, as this is new driving rule. Also unless you have done your Pass Plus you may not be familiar with motorway rules and high speed driving can be very intimidating.

Smart Motorways also have cameras fitted to spot any vehicle breakdown and so that affected lane can be closed to keep people safe. Also extra lay-bys were introduced every 600m where breakdown vehicle could stop.

Initially M42 was converted to smart motorways and it all went well. Currently many smart motorways are scattered around the country.

AA considers Smart Motorways are dangerous and not fit for purpose and if you breakdown, ring 999 and either stay inside your vehicle with Hazard Lights on or leave your car through passenger side and wait on the verge. Waiting in your car is still dangerous and people has been killed while waiting for a rescue to arrive.

According to Highway report it takes 17 minutes to spot breakdown vehicles and  3 minutes to activate sign and then further 17 minutes to recover that vehicle so basically you are sitting duck for about 30min.

RISK STATISTICS
Prior to smart motorways there were 72 near misses reported and in 5 years of smart motorways 1485 near misses were reported, that equals a rise of 20 folds in risk. There has been 38 deaths while people are waiting in or outside there cars for recover vehicles to arrive .

WHATS THE FUTURE
Government has now decided to introduce Radars on all smart motorways and also introduce more lay-bys, although many people think enough is enough and we should do always with so called smart motorways.

What do you think, let us know in comments section.

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