To think smart motorways were never a good idea?

[bluebottle23]

I've just been watching a news segment about smart motorways and can't fathom how they ever got approved. Literally an accident waiting to happen and sadly many did. I hate driving on a smart motorway, especially with my daughter and just seeing aerial footage of one there is literally nowhere safe for you to get out stand and wait. I'd rather be stuck in slow moving traffic than risk my family's life on one of these motorways.

Good decision today and a landmark day for the campaigners of Smart Motorways Kill.
A few years ago there was a thread on MN about how many people would die on the shoulderless motorways and a poster came on to say that she had been part of the design team and defended them. I wonder how she feels about today's ruling.

I don't feel that the design is the problem, more the way people drive and it sounds as though the tech wasn't up to it.

Good design MUST take user behaviour into account. People are fallible. No design that involves safety should ever be fully reliant on humans following the system correctly.

There will always be people who don't know how it's supposed to work. New drivers who are inexperienced, older drivers who learned before it was a thing, people who missed the memo (look at the number of people on this thread asking what smart motorways are). People who have moved from abroad, who may not be able to read English. People who are tired or ill or distracted or drunk. People who don't understand why the signs are changed.

Good design, safe design, should account for all these scenarios and protect people regardless. Obviously nobody should be driving without knowing the rules of the road, or drunk or speeding etc but it happens, and good road design should minimise the impact on other road users as well as using police enforcement to hopefully reduce numbers of this kind of thing.

I said - as I imagine we all did - at the time they were first introduced, "What kind of absolute NONSENSE is this?"

Terrible idea.

YANBU

I avoid these dangerous roads whenever possible

@BertieBotts I agree about design.

Bloody stupid idea. I just pray that I never break down in a live lane

Well, we are all used to A road dual carriage ways, we didn't take a relatively safe design and make it more dangerous, using tech to re assure us all.

However the A38 between Exeter and Plymouth is one of the most dangerous DC's around, volume of traffic.

We need to start looking at ways to reduce traffic, not constantly trying to fit more cars into a static road network.