Smart motorways and accidents.
 

For starters- no, I haven't been in one, I haven't witnessed one.. yet.

But recently I've been going trough a lot of YouTube clips, mostly looking at roads and junctions (the difficult ones) that I may be traveling on, soon.

And I stumbled upon something called "corridor of life".

Now, even if I came from Poland, I didn't know of this.. "invention".
And apparently it was widely advertised on net and media. Judging by clips I've seen- with a bit of success, too.

This made me think:

On "old" motorways, there was hard shoulder for ambulance or fire brigade to use. On "smart" ones, there isn't one.

Of course gantries may convey message to clear this or other lane, but then it may be simply too late. Cars packed bumper to bumper don't move to side all that easily (example in one of clips).

Trick is- drivers place cars to sides as soon as there is congestion. Not even knowing why there is congestion, already they are forming corridor. If needed- good. If not needed- nobody lost anything, eh?



So my question would be: how does the board find this idea?

One done right:

https://youtu.be/ukgfAqO5l7Q

And one where cars moved away too late, or didn't move at all (don't mind the intro)

https://youtu.be/FgmbW54MSIQ

This cannot be implemented in the UK because people are very stupid.

Judging by sh1tloads of clips I've seen, level of stupidity is the same :)

I have to say, though, English drivers are more.. cultural on the road. Driving ethics are better.

Agreed!

Plus there's too many vehicles out there to be able to find space to do it! The whole motorway system is so congested that everything just grinds to a halt across the whole width of the motorway when something happens in just one lane.

Motorways
 

I've driven on smart motorways a lot, Thomas, especially on the M42 around Birmingham when I was working at Jaguar and Land Rover. In a nutshell, they do seem to keep the traffic moving more freely; just pray that you do not break down!

In theory, if you do break down you head for one of the emergency bays, but what if you are unable to reach one ... ?

When the first motorways were opened in the UK in the late '50s / early '60s, they were built without hard shoulders or a central divide. Of course, there was much less traffic then and speeds were lower (with some notable exceptions) than they are today. I remember the thrill of hitting 60MPH in my dad's Ford Popular on the M1 in the mid '60s!

The hard shoulder was introduced as a refuge for broken down vehicles and also, as you say, used by emergency vehicles to quickly reach an incident when the main carrigeway was obstructed.

Later, a motorway required by definition a hard shoulder and it is interesting to note that the last 15 or so miles of the M42 at the M1 end is in fact deignated the A42. I understand that this is because money ran out and the final stretch was built sans hard shoulder and could thus be classified as an 'A' road.

Going back to an earlier thread, this makes it ideal for giving learner drivers 'motorway' driving experience, but one does need to be extra vigilant that there may be broken down vehicles (at least partially) obstructing the carriageway.

Regards, John.

One of promotional clips, broadcasted by TV.

Only last sentence matters: "We were too late".


From time to time, UK TV and radio broadcasts things like "pedestrian hit with 30mph has 90% of dying, pedestrian hit with 20mph has 90% chance to live"

So why not something like this?

https://youtu.be/o3M6aSyPHhw

Or this:

https://youtu.be/G_KuYj7yVEY

I'm hoping that following brexit, we can have a huge shakeup of standards in our society.

Great..

Not really a new idea..

Germany, Austria, INDIA(!).. half of the world is using this.

Not a mention of it locally, though.

I won't share my opinion...

The 'corridor of life' seems a great idea but requires the cooperation of all drivers which brings us to T5R92011's point. Chris' point regarding the level of congestion on UK roads and motorways would also be a limiting factor, it's tempting to compare UK with European roads but we do have a much greater density of population and therefore traffic. With UK traffic levels it's quite common to have phantom stoppages which ripple back up the motorway ( youtube ), if we all dived to the side each time I think there would be pandemonium and additional delays as people rejoined the traffic as it moved on again.
On smart motorways the situation could be greatly improved by good use of the gantry signs and drivers obeying them, unfortunately my personal experience is that the signs are poorly implemented and often ignored (probably because drivers don't believe them).

In the current system the best advice I could give is summed up by the phrase 'Tyres and Tarmac', if you find yourself joining the end of a queue stay back far enough from the car in front that you can see their rear tyres and some tarmac between your bonnet and their bumper, this will allow you enough room to manouver to the side if an emergency vehicle needs to come through (or to pull out from behind them if they are broken down). You can adapt how much tarmac you feel you need to see for your own vehicle but the principle remains.

As the driver of a breakdown truck I much prefer picking broken down vehicles up from a smart motorway emergency refuge area than a hard shoulder. The refuge areas are a much safer place too in my opinion.
Where a driver is not able to reach a refuge area they are usually towed to one or off the motorway by the Highways Agency pretty quick.
The only time I hate the smart motorway is when someone has just broken down and there are no warnings yet. Also if the emergency services need to get to an accident and there is a long tailback and no hard shoulder all lanes will be closed and they will drive the wrong way down the motorway, safely because every inch is on camera. I was very sceptical when they were first introduced but I’m now a big fan