6 ms·

As someone that doesn’t live in the UK, I had to look up what smart motorways were. It seems like the key thing here is that these roads have lights that signal

As someone that doesn’t live in the UK, I had to look up what smart motorways were. It seems like the key thing here is that these roads have lights that signal that the hard shoulder can sometimes be used as a lane of traffic. Without a hard shoulder, broken down cars have nowhere safe to stop and must stop in a lane of traffic. I think the idea is that the systems need to detect stopped cars and mark the affected lanes/shoulders as non-traffic lanes.

pharmakom 6y ago
The concern is that the outside lane doesn’t get converted into a hard shoulder fast enough to provide a safe place to stop.
- lilSebastian 6y ago
  Also, what happens most of the time on UK motorways, drivers ignore the signage.
  - londons_explore 6y ago
    That's why they need actuated spikes... It's pretty hard to keep driving at dangerous speeds when your tyres are flat... Ignore the signage and you'll be buying new tyres... That will soon have everyone paying attention to the signs.
    - ytwySXpMbS 6y ago
      That’s obviously ridiculous, you can’t purposefully puncture a moving cars tires to enforce a lane. You’d kill people, what about people who missed the signs?
      - londons_explore 6y ago
        People who miss the signs also kill people. Which is less bad?
        nl 6y ago
        Deliberately creating a safety hazard is much worse than someone who is inattentive.
    - lilSebastian 6y ago
      Introducing a safety hazard, likely to cause further issues, when vehicles are traveling at speed, with nowhere else to go. Good job on suggesting one way to make things much worse.
  - tomatocracy 6y ago
    The signage is a disaster on these roads. Lane closures are a very unobtrusive red X and not posted frequently enough. Text is too short and doesn't indicate how far ahead any hazard might be. Some signs are in a different style (small board overhead rather than a gantry across all lanes) which can easily be mistaken for an advisory notice not a command/prohibition. Worst of all, the signs are almost always massively out of date and present a false alarm. You'll see a lane closure and very short text "obstruction in road" sign but then nothing actually there. I don't do huge mileage on these roads and I've probably come across this false alarm scenario 40 or 50 times, and never seen an actual hazard which was signed. It's not at all surprising they get ignored by a significant minority of drivers.
    - lilSebastian 5y ago
      100% Agree. It's badly designed and badly implemented. Dangerous by design.
IneffablePigeon 6y ago
There's a few things that fall under the "smart motorway" umbrella. They also have systems to detect traffic flow and impose variable speed limits when approaching a queue, and usually regular speed cameras to enforce those limits. This stopped car detection thing is indeed about the ones that can open the hard shoulder for traffic, though.
Closi 6y ago
Exactly - basically there used to be 2/3 lanes and a hard shoulder, and they changed the road to 3/4 lanes and no hard shoulder. Because branding them “motorways without a hard shoulder” sounded unsafe and bad they decided to call the proposal “smart motorways” (Because who would want to argue with that? You want regular stupid motorways?).
- emayljames 6y ago
  I remember when this clearly deadly and badly thought out idea was implemented, and thinking "what, who are they kidding!".
michaelt 6y ago
The political context here is: There have been four different coroners' reports where smart motorways have contributed to deaths. Most recently in January [1] after two stopped vehicles - which would otherwise have stopped on a hard shoulder - instead had to stop in a traffic lane and were hit by a truck. In principle, smart motorways are already supposed to be covered in cameras etc, so people in a control centre can stop the traffic in a lane if the need arises. Apparently it doesn't work all that well in practice, though. [1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-55708791 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-557087...
- helsinkiandrew 6y ago
  Smart roads contribute to some deaths but stop others: "Overall, what the evidence shows is that in most ways, smart motorways are as safe as, or safer than, the conventional ones. But not in every way. The statistics suggest that fatal casualty rates are lower while injury rates are slightly higher." https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/936811/smart-motorway-safety-evidence-stocktake-and-action-plan.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...
  - tialaramex 6y ago
    My understanding is, a "Smart Motorway" gets a bunch of safety upgrades, the government won't fund these upgrades for other motorways, even though they'd be applicable, because then you'd have an apples-to-apples comparison and you likely find that, duh, Smart Motorways are unsafe. Because the purpose of this work is capacity increase, it almost unavoidably increases total fatalities because it increases traffic. If 10% more cars make a journey, even if those journeys aren't made less safe you get 10% more fatal accidents.
    - helsinkiandrew 6y ago
      The accidents are quoted per 'traveller mile' so an increase in capacity won't increase accidents. Any type of motorway is safer (in accidents per traveller mile) than other roads so if the increased capacity steals traffic from those rather than just increases the amount of journeys it would decrease the accidents. UK motorways are some of the safest in the world - alcohol, phones and other distractions, tiredness, driving recklessly are probably more of an issue than smart motorways.
azalemeth 6y ago
Motorways ("freeways" in en-us, I think) are traditionally 3 lanes with a 4th lane as a 'hard shoulder' that is closed to all traffic except those who have broken down and the emergency services. Smart Motorways were a Tory government idea designed to be "car friendly" and increase apparent road capacity without actually costing much money -- by using already-existing lightable signs above the motorway to convert the hard shoulder into another lane of traffic, and adding in "refuge areas" every $[$RANDOM % 5+1] miles. The trouble is, if you're in a motorway where every one of the now four lanes of traffic is going at the speed limit of 70 miles an hour (or, more likely, 80 miles an hour) and your tire explodes, you might not be able to coast the requisite distance to a refuge area, and you might not have the wherewithall to adequately pull into what is in effect a small siding about the size of an articulated lorry. If you break down in a "live lane" the signs are supposed to change to move traffic out behind you, so it doesn't ram into the car. Naturally, this hasn't worked well, and a bunch of people have died. At least one coroner has specifically called out Her Majesty's Government for directly contributing to deaths and blamed the smart motorway concept in general. There's at least one harrowing 999 call I've heard somewhere of someone saying "Help, I've broken down in lane 2 of the M4 and my car has stopped and I couldn't get into lane 1 when <BANG> <sound of young child crying> <no more adult voice>". Some of the "smarts" in smart motorways in doing lane-light switching this have been provided by humans and/or computer vision on the basis of CCTV. The trouble is, they've been ineffective. This announcement states that they're going to replace the previous approach with mmWave radar that I presume can detect changes more rapidly (quite how that works with shadows and reflections -- and cars in front of lorries, I don't know). Fundamentally, this seems to be "papering over the cracks" of the idea -- and I unfortunately don't think it will work. Many, if not most, British people want to go back to the old system of having 3 lanes + a hard shoulder. We don't understand why the Tories really, really love smart motorways: it probably comes out of a combination of 'driver friendly' Manifesto promises combined with economic modelling about the cost of traffic jams.
- Veen 6y ago
  > Smart Motorways were a Tory government idea Not so. The first smart motorway was introduced in 2006 under the Blair government. They were expanded under Ruth Kelly, Labour Secretary of State for Transport in 2007 when Brown was PM. They were further extended when the coalition came to power in 2010, but smart motorways were not originally a “Tory idea”.
shortercode 6y ago
Not all smart motorways have the hard shoulder thing, the ones that do have semi frequent "stopping bays". However, stopping in one without contacting the support staff(there are intercoms) or a good reason is an offence. They all feature per lane adjustable speed limits, as well as linked speed cameras at frequent intervals. This is supposed to help ease congestion by adjusting flow in certain areas. In practice random signs are often left on the wrong setting, so you get a speed reduction to 40mph for 250m. Or a lane is closed for 6 miles with no reason. I've no doubt that in the scenario where there is congestion that it greatly aids safety, as approaching traffic can be slowed before they reach the affected area
- VBprogrammer 6y ago
  My least favourite thing is when they apply a patently absurd speed limit, I've seen 20mph signs on the M25 when traffic is moving freely. You are then faced with the dilemma between setting those speed cameras off or risking a lorry driver playing candy crush on his mobile phone running into the back of you.
Cthulhu_ 6y ago
I live in the Netherlands and they've been doing it here for a while, but they've called it differently (a 'spitsstrook', or a 'rush hour lane') which is opening up the hard shoulder for traffic during rush hour. There's no pretense of it being 'smart' anywhere, they had to in some places because the pressure of traffic is too high and widening the road is not an option.
- fmajid 6y ago
  I remember visiting the Netherlands in 99. That was the first sunny weekend and they had 1000km of traffic jams, when the entire highway network is 4000km...
chrisseaton 6y ago
> Without a hard shoulder, broken down cars have nowhere safe to stop and must stop in a lane of traffic. Sounds absolutely insane and lethal when you write it down doesn't it?
martin-adams 6y ago
As a Uk person who has driven on them, I had to look it up as well at the time. I was shocked to find how they weren’t smart. I honestly thought the smart part was safety and breakdown detection as the hard shoulder was used for traffic. I was wrong and shocked.
lsllc 6y ago
Come to Massachusetts where "Breakdown Lane Travel" is allowed during rush-hour (only in the inbound direction in the morning and outbound in the afternoon/evening and where signposted). We have reasonable sized pull out areas every mile or so, but the really nasty part is that the on-ramps now suddenly dump you into the moving breakdown lane traffic (which would otherwise be your acceleration / merge lane). Thankfully, traffic is so bad around Boston, that typically it's all at a standstill anyway.

pharmakom 6y ago

The concern is that the outside lane doesn’t get converted into a hard shoulder fast enough to provide a safe place to stop.

lilSebastian 6y ago
Also, what happens most of the time on UK motorways, drivers ignore the signage.
- londons_explore 6y ago
  That's why they need actuated spikes... It's pretty hard to keep driving at dangerous speeds when your tyres are flat... Ignore the signage and you'll be buying new tyres... That will soon have everyone paying attention to the signs.
  - ytwySXpMbS 6y ago
    That’s obviously ridiculous, you can’t purposefully puncture a moving cars tires to enforce a lane. You’d kill people, what about people who missed the signs?
    - londons_explore 6y ago
      People who miss the signs also kill people. Which is less bad?
      - nl 6y ago
        Deliberately creating a safety hazard is much worse than someone who is inattentive.
  - lilSebastian 6y ago
    Introducing a safety hazard, likely to cause further issues, when vehicles are traveling at speed, with nowhere else to go. Good job on suggesting one way to make things much worse.
- tomatocracy 6y ago
  The signage is a disaster on these roads. Lane closures are a very unobtrusive red X and not posted frequently enough. Text is too short and doesn't indicate how far ahead any hazard might be. Some signs are in a different style (small board overhead rather than a gantry across all lanes) which can easily be mistaken for an advisory notice not a command/prohibition. Worst of all, the signs are almost always massively out of date and present a false alarm. You'll see a lane closure and very short text "obstruction in road" sign but then nothing actually there. I don't do huge mileage on these roads and I've probably come across this false alarm scenario 40 or 50 times, and never seen an actual hazard which was signed. It's not at all surprising they get ignored by a significant minority of drivers.
  - lilSebastian 5y ago
    100% Agree. It's badly designed and badly implemented. Dangerous by design.

IneffablePigeon 6y ago

There's a few things that fall under the "smart motorway" umbrella. They also have systems to detect traffic flow and impose variable speed limits when approaching a queue, and usually regular speed cameras to enforce those limits. This stopped car detection thing is indeed about the ones that can open the hard shoulder for traffic, though.

Closi 6y ago

Exactly - basically there used to be 2/3 lanes and a hard shoulder, and they changed the road to 3/4 lanes and no hard shoulder. Because branding them “motorways without a hard shoulder” sounded unsafe and bad they decided to call the proposal “smart motorways” (Because who would want to argue with that? You want regular stupid motorways?).

emayljames 6y ago
I remember when this clearly deadly and badly thought out idea was implemented, and thinking "what, who are they kidding!".

michaelt 6y ago

The political context here is: There have been four different coroners' reports where smart motorways have contributed to deaths. Most recently in January [1] after two stopped vehicles - which would otherwise have stopped on a hard shoulder - instead had to stop in a traffic lane and were hit by a truck. In principle, smart motorways are already supposed to be covered in cameras etc, so people in a control centre can stop the traffic in a lane if the need arises. Apparently it doesn't work all that well in practice, though. [1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-55708791 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-557087...

helsinkiandrew 6y ago
Smart roads contribute to some deaths but stop others: "Overall, what the evidence shows is that in most ways, smart motorways are as safe as, or safer than, the conventional ones. But not in every way. The statistics suggest that fatal casualty rates are lower while injury rates are slightly higher." https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/936811/smart-motorway-safety-evidence-stocktake-and-action-plan.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...
- tialaramex 6y ago
  My understanding is, a "Smart Motorway" gets a bunch of safety upgrades, the government won't fund these upgrades for other motorways, even though they'd be applicable, because then you'd have an apples-to-apples comparison and you likely find that, duh, Smart Motorways are unsafe. Because the purpose of this work is capacity increase, it almost unavoidably increases total fatalities because it increases traffic. If 10% more cars make a journey, even if those journeys aren't made less safe you get 10% more fatal accidents.
  - helsinkiandrew 6y ago
    The accidents are quoted per 'traveller mile' so an increase in capacity won't increase accidents. Any type of motorway is safer (in accidents per traveller mile) than other roads so if the increased capacity steals traffic from those rather than just increases the amount of journeys it would decrease the accidents. UK motorways are some of the safest in the world - alcohol, phones and other distractions, tiredness, driving recklessly are probably more of an issue than smart motorways.

azalemeth 6y ago

Motorways ("freeways" in en-us, I think) are traditionally 3 lanes with a 4th lane as a 'hard shoulder' that is closed to all traffic except those who have broken down and the emergency services. Smart Motorways were a Tory government idea designed to be "car friendly" and increase apparent road capacity without actually costing much money -- by using already-existing lightable signs above the motorway to convert the hard shoulder into another lane of traffic, and adding in "refuge areas" every $[$RANDOM % 5+1] miles. The trouble is, if you're in a motorway where every one of the now four lanes of traffic is going at the speed limit of 70 miles an hour (or, more likely, 80 miles an hour) and your tire explodes, you might not be able to coast the requisite distance to a refuge area, and you might not have the wherewithall to adequately pull into what is in effect a small siding about the size of an articulated lorry. If you break down in a "live lane" the signs are supposed to change to move traffic out behind you, so it doesn't ram into the car. Naturally, this hasn't worked well, and a bunch of people have died. At least one coroner has specifically called out Her Majesty's Government for directly contributing to deaths and blamed the smart motorway concept in general. There's at least one harrowing 999 call I've heard somewhere of someone saying "Help, I've broken down in lane 2 of the M4 and my car has stopped and I couldn't get into lane 1 when <BANG> <sound of young child crying> <no more adult voice>". Some of the "smarts" in smart motorways in doing lane-light switching this have been provided by humans and/or computer vision on the basis of CCTV. The trouble is, they've been ineffective. This announcement states that they're going to replace the previous approach with mmWave radar that I presume can detect changes more rapidly (quite how that works with shadows and reflections -- and cars in front of lorries, I don't know). Fundamentally, this seems to be "papering over the cracks" of the idea -- and I unfortunately don't think it will work. Many, if not most, British people want to go back to the old system of having 3 lanes + a hard shoulder. We don't understand why the Tories really, really love smart motorways: it probably comes out of a combination of 'driver friendly' Manifesto promises combined with economic modelling about the cost of traffic jams.

Veen 6y ago
> Smart Motorways were a Tory government idea Not so. The first smart motorway was introduced in 2006 under the Blair government. They were expanded under Ruth Kelly, Labour Secretary of State for Transport in 2007 when Brown was PM. They were further extended when the coalition came to power in 2010, but smart motorways were not originally a “Tory idea”.

shortercode 6y ago

Not all smart motorways have the hard shoulder thing, the ones that do have semi frequent "stopping bays". However, stopping in one without contacting the support staff(there are intercoms) or a good reason is an offence. They all feature per lane adjustable speed limits, as well as linked speed cameras at frequent intervals. This is supposed to help ease congestion by adjusting flow in certain areas. In practice random signs are often left on the wrong setting, so you get a speed reduction to 40mph for 250m. Or a lane is closed for 6 miles with no reason. I've no doubt that in the scenario where there is congestion that it greatly aids safety, as approaching traffic can be slowed before they reach the affected area

VBprogrammer 6y ago
My least favourite thing is when they apply a patently absurd speed limit, I've seen 20mph signs on the M25 when traffic is moving freely. You are then faced with the dilemma between setting those speed cameras off or risking a lorry driver playing candy crush on his mobile phone running into the back of you.

Cthulhu_ 6y ago

I live in the Netherlands and they've been doing it here for a while, but they've called it differently (a 'spitsstrook', or a 'rush hour lane') which is opening up the hard shoulder for traffic during rush hour. There's no pretense of it being 'smart' anywhere, they had to in some places because the pressure of traffic is too high and widening the road is not an option.

fmajid 6y ago
I remember visiting the Netherlands in 99. That was the first sunny weekend and they had 1000km of traffic jams, when the entire highway network is 4000km...

chrisseaton 6y ago

> Without a hard shoulder, broken down cars have nowhere safe to stop and must stop in a lane of traffic. Sounds absolutely insane and lethal when you write it down doesn't it?

martin-adams 6y ago

As a Uk person who has driven on them, I had to look it up as well at the time. I was shocked to find how they weren’t smart. I honestly thought the smart part was safety and breakdown detection as the hard shoulder was used for traffic. I was wrong and shocked.

lsllc 6y ago

Come to Massachusetts where "Breakdown Lane Travel" is allowed during rush-hour (only in the inbound direction in the morning and outbound in the afternoon/evening and where signposted). We have reasonable sized pull out areas every mile or so, but the really nasty part is that the on-ramps now suddenly dump you into the moving breakdown lane traffic (which would otherwise be your acceleration / merge lane). Thankfully, traffic is so bad around Boston, that typically it's all at a standstill anyway.