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“Smart”Motorways.

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ludwigvan | 16:29 Fri 19th Mar 2021 | Adverts
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The fluffy,cuddly advert using cartoon figures telling you what to do if you get a warning light in your vehicle, lets have an advert showing someone broken down on one of these insanely dangerous motorways trying to get their wife,children and pets out of the car before a Polish lorry driver watching a video smashes their car to smithereens.
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Those motorways are not so "smart". I avoid the left-hand lane at all times.
Those responsible for implementing these death traps should be made to pay for the consequences of their obviously dangerous decisions. Culpability. Not officially applied in the UK.
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Bookbinder, apparently most people avoid using the hard shoulder even when it’s in use because of the danger of encountering a stationary vehicle or getting a puncture from the detritus that invariably gathers there, the sooner they’re scrapped the better.
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Thanks BB, signed.
Only the most dedicated Xenophobe would bring nationality into it.
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People still don't seem to understand the statistics.

Say you've got a stretch of motorway where, in a typical year, five or six people will die (or be seriously injured) in 'normal' road accidents. You then make that motorway 'smart', thus smoothing traffic flows and eliminating the 'normal' accidents but one or two people subsequently die each year through collisions with stranded vehicles. Yes, those particular people wouldn't have died if the motorway wasn't 'smart' but you've still improved the situation overall.

That's why, when you look at the WHOLE picture (and NOT just at isolated incidents), 'smart' motorways are actually SAFER than the 'normal' motorways that preceded them.
// Only the most dedicated Xenophobe would bring nationality into it. //

nothing to do with xenophobia, non-uk truck drivers have more accidents on uk roads, it's a fact. for the year of most recent statistics, non-UK HGVs were in 1,061 accidents, up from 929 2 years previously. of those, 15%, the top percentage, involved polish drivers, with german drivers in second place at 13.1%.
I'll believe that about reduced accident numbers on smart motorways when I see actual data. Have you got a link?
I agree with Chris - the occasional headline-grabbing smash is indeed regrettable, but the overall saving of life is indisputable.
"nearly all statistics point to them being as safe if not safer than normal ones: between 2015-2018, the fatal casualty rate for smart motorways without a permanent hard shoulder was lower than on motorways with one."

https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/science-and-technology/smart-motorways-how-dangerous-vs-deaths-uk
^^^ Thanks, Dave.
depends what people understand by the term "Smart Motorway". the term has come to be applied by the public to what the government calls "All Lane Running" (ALR), ie no shoulder at all; whereas officially Smart Motorway refers to 3 different schemes - controlled motorways, dynamic hard shoulder as well as ALR. near here, the M42 dynamic scheme was the prototype, with many cameras, speed indicating gantries, closely spaced lay-bys and a shoulder that could be deployed as a running lane if required. it's very effective. but it was also very expensive to install and operate. so the DfT watered it down and invented ALR. Is ALR as safe as the dynamic schemes that preceded it?
The next time you're broken down on a "smart" motorway with a 44 ton articulated lorry heading in your direction, you might consider statistics ain't gonna save you.
Nope - but leaving the car and being very promptly on the outside of the Armco and up the verge should - it's amazing how many people just sit there ...
\\Nope - but leaving the car and being very promptly on the outside of the Armco and up the verge should - it's amazing how many people just sit there.//
True, especially the old and disabled.

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