Smart motorway? Thick traffic managers

[longwayoff]

Stunningly dangerous, no hard shoulder on motorway. Wtf is wrong with people? Can we please have this stupidity done away with?

On the smart motorway section of the M1 there's no hard shoulder. If you break down near one of the refuges and can get into it fine....but they're not that frequent and I would imagine most accidents/breakdowns aren't going to get into a refuge.

I can imagine being broken down on a hard shoulder is scary but been broken down on an active motorway carriageway must be terrifying. It's all very well saying the carriageway will close but even if that happens ultra quick you're still going to have a couple of hundred cars go past you and potentially into you on a busy day before the gantry Xs activate.

I'm sure I've read about some issues with it in the papers from people who have broken down and then been crashed into.

Its all very well moaning OP but this is the reality of more cars on the road and shit public transport if you’re outside London.

Yep thats the problem really. When you break down on an active motorway you are asking for trouble:(

Terrifying really.

The section of the M1 j28 to j31 just has 4 live lanes, no hard shoulder at all, few refuges. Breaking down on a section like that is a terrifying prospect.

I was once caught in the aftermath of an incident on the M1 j25-26 that had closed the carrigeway. The carrigeway was widened to 4 lanes, but there was no extra width under exisiting bridges, so no hard shoulders at those points. Emergency vehicles were still attending the scene and trying to approach from all over the carrigeway because they had no through route. All you could do was shuffle up in your stopping distance to make space for emergency vehicles to pass. The result was being gridlocked for 2+ hours with vehicles strewn all over the place at odd angles. Not very safe for emergency vehicles!

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.cheshire-live.co.uk/news/chester-cheshire-news/distressing-999-call-dad-made-14186704.amp

This is the call (they all survived).

A quick google tells you there are loads of concerns

I daily commuted on the m42 as the scheme unfolded, about 200k mikes. It worked very well during the week: high loads, alert drivers, less scrap. It worked less well at the weekends: lower loads, but drivers less alert and a lot more breakdowns.

Well thank you believeit. It is the reality but it probably shouldn't be.

Stopping needlessly lowering the speed limit to 40/50mph when there's noone actually carrying out roadworks would ease the congestion without having to do away with the hard shoulder. Very few motorways near me are 70mph limits, most are 50 and have been for years for no apparent reason.