AIBU to not feel safe driving an unreliable car on a 'smart' motorway?

[whiteroseredrose]

Our current car is 15 years old. We bought it 2 years ago to replace an identical model that was written off when someone drove into it. It is a Honda FRV which is an ideal car for us in terms of space and flexibility but sadly they stopped being made in 2008.

Our original car we had from 4 years old and it had been serviced and taken care of properly. Even though it had done 120,000 miles it was still going strong. Current car has 80,000 on the clock but has clearly been hammered. It has been to and fro to the garage with one thing or another. We currently only have this one car as DH has been waiting for months for a new company salary sacrifice scheme to happen so that he can order a new car. This could be another 6 months or more.

Last week it had to go into the garage yet again because the engine sounded strained and it was knocking. As we then potentially had no car we started looking at buying a replacement.

It has been 'fixed' so DH sees no reason to look for a newer one, but I really don't trust it not to fail again.

We have a few long journeys coming up, one that will be DD and I alone, and quite frankly I am not happy driving an unreliable banger along a motorway with no hard shoulder.

DH thinks I am being overly emotional about it. Am I?

Last I heard it was 38 people had died on smart motorways. This is not including those who received delayed medical help due to ambulances not being able to get through.

I've been stuck on the m1 many a time hearing sirens and watching the slow movement of people in the fast lane. There should be an automatic movement to close a lane in the case of an accident.

Of course that is less that all other motorways that are having accidents. The difference is, smart motorway deaths are usually entirely preventable if there was a hard shoulder. Motorway deaths are usually preventable if all parties were paying attention.

They have a good reliability record. In other words, you may get a horror, but the chance of that happening is less than most other makes.

If you feel that the car is that unreliable then you shouldn't drive it anywhere. Breaking down on a country lane could be more dangerous than a smart motorway.

My comment was stats based on a ratio- sorry thought that would be obvious.

Dp's current client was part of the smart motorway system design team.
The idea is to notify and then control the traffic. They are also preparing for driverless cars.
However, people seem unable to exit their vehicles and stand BEHIND IT over the barriers away from the traffic. People also seem unable to exit correctly and even read the signs displaying information.

I believe the road system is functional, but the driving habits of some individuals are absurd. On the M1, the fourth lane from London was moving slower (As low as 48mph) than the third lane at times. Although four lanes were meant to reduce congestion, lane 2-3 hoggers have essentially turned the motorway into two slow-moving lanes.

On smart motorways the second lane is no longer hogged. It's lane 3 and 4. 3 is the new middle. Over the school holidays there have been messages on the gantry to keep left unless overtaking. No fucker listens.

@FlamingYam there used to be traffic police, but presumably having them now would be a 'war on the motorist'.

😂

I do still see them every so often but honestly they aren't much better.

YANBU. Smart motorways are lethal. Any politician who was instrumental in introducing them should be forced to stage a breakdown, with his entire family in the car, on a smart motorway. In the dark. In the rain. In the rush hour.

I replaced my last car, which was a few years older than yours, regularly serviced and still apparently perfectly reliable, because I often had to drive on a particular, invariably very busy 6 lane section of the M25, and I’d become nervous in case it chose to die on me there. A former very elderly car had died on me just down the road. But I’d still been quite happy to drive the more recent one locally.

For the first time ever, I saw a car that had just broken down on a Smart motorway. A lorry had stopped behind it, and had put its lights on to protect it as a queue hadn't started to form but I did have to react pretty quickly to slow down and change lanes. You can see how a horrible accident could have easily happened.

I do get what you mean about being worried in an unreliable car - but the same could happen on a single lane or dual carriageway without an easy way to pull off to the left hand side.

On ambulances and emergency vehicles, in Germany I saw regular motorway signs telling people to form an emergency lane by moving to the left and right of a lane if there was a queue so ambulances etc could get through.

That would be a change of behaviour over here.

I don't believe that blow outs can happen at anytime. Likelihood is the car tyres were in poor condition.
Tyre manufacturers wouldn't be able to sell a product that failed at any moment.

It did to me. Brand new tyre, first long journey after having it fitted and the beading snapped and the tyre shredded.

Not at all fun in lane 3 at 85mph.

YANBU, stick to A roads.

YANBU.

I used to own a second hand FRV, probably about 10 years ago, bought from a main dealer.

Not long after I bought it, the engine cut out on a motorway. Thankfully the motorway was quiet at the time and I was a few metres away from the slip road. I whacked on the hazards and managed to steer up the slip road and leapt over the barrier incase a collision happened.

That was scary enough as an lone adult in quiet conditions. I couldn't imagine having to unbuckle multiple car seats etc and get kids to safety in busier conditions.

I did return my FRV. I was so sad to let it go. It was the most practical car, top spec car I've owned. But I couldn't quite trust it again after that day. Also scarcity of parts given that it is no longer manufactured bothered me a lot

I wouldn't like to drive an unreliable car on any motorway.

My previous car was 16 years old. One day while I was driving it it suddenly made a horrible noise and came immediately to a standstill. When I got out one of the wheels appeared to be hanging off. Looking underneath I could see bits of car touching the ground. Turned out something that is apparently called the "wishbone" (you can tell my knowledge of cars is limited) to which the wheels attach had just broken in two. The car could not be moved or pushed. It couldn't even be towed in the normal way I had to get a low loader out to shift it.

I just shudder to think what would have happened if this had been on a motorway as I had no warning and the car came immediately to rest. I wouldn't have made it to the hard shoulder even if there had been one.

Fortunately I wasn't driving fast and was on a road leading out of town, a wide straight road with good visibility and room for people to pass. Also beside a pavement where I could wait safely.

I know what you mean. We had a fan belt go when we were in the third lane, and we managed to steer over to the hard shoulder. We would not have made it to a refuge unless it was right there.
I have also been driving along a smart motorway and realised the car up ahead was stopped. No signs active. I overtook, but only because there was space to do so at that moment. It was scary.

An unreliable car on an ordinary motorway is fine. You just drive in the first lane so it is easy to come off at the hard shoulder if there is an issue.

And I have broken down on a dual carriageway. I steered the car onto the grassy bank away from the road. You can't physically do this on most motorways.