SMARTening motorways

[Horse]

Highways England has confirmed a number of proposals as part of its commitment to improve smart motorways.

The plans come as part of the organisation’s annual report which suggests 18 changes.

In October 2019, the Secretary of State for Transport asked the Department for Transport (DfT) to carry out a stocktake of the safety of smart motorways.

Published in March 2020, the Smart motorway safety evidence stocktake and action plan established that, in ‘most ways’, smart motorways are at least as safe as, or safer than, the conventional motorways they replaced. “However, there are individual risks within their operation that could be further reduced to improve safety and public confidence. We are determined to do all we can to make our roads as safe as possible, and we will take forward the measures set out by DfT,” said the annual report.

“We have agreed with government an 18-point action plan to make smart motorways safer and increase customer confidence in using them. Recognising concerns, we will strengthen our existing communications and public awareness messages, aimed at improving our customers’ understanding about how to use smart motorways and what to do in an emergency,” it added.

The changes include the investment of £5 million extra to further increase public awareness and understanding of smart motorways and how to use them confidently. “We will ensure drivers receive advice to help them keep safe on smart motorways, including advice on what to do in a breakdown,” said the report. There will be an end to the use of dynamic hard shoulders by converting dynamic hard shoulder sections to all-lane running to end driver confusion over different types of smart motorway. Also included is faster roll-out of stopped vehicle detection to all sections of smart motorway currently without it so stopped vehicles are, in most cases, detected in 20 seconds. Future designed schemes will have this technology as standard, said Highways England.

The organisation is also committing to a new standard for spacing of places to stop in an emergency, with a maximum of one mile apart. We will look to, where feasible, provide them every 0.75 miles apart so that, on future schemes, motorists should typically reach one every 45 seconds at 60mph.

The changes in full:

1. Ending the use of dynamic hard shoulders by converting dynamic hard
shoulder sections to all-lane running to end driver confusion over different types of smart motorway.
2. Faster roll-out of stopped vehicle detection to all sections of smart motorway currently without it so stopped vehicles are, in most cases, detected in 20 seconds. Future designed schemes will have this technology as standard.
3. Faster attendance by more Highways England traffic officer patrols on
smart motorways where the existing spacing between places to stop in an
emergency, such as motorway services and emergency areas, is more than one mile, reducing the attendance time from an average of 17 minutes to 10 minutes.
4. Committing to a new standard for spacing of places to stop in an
emergency, with a maximum of one mile apart. We will look to, where feasible, provide them every 0.75 miles apart so that, on future schemes, motorists should typically reach one every 45 seconds at 60mph.
5. Delivering ten additional emergency areas on the M25 on the sections of
smart motorway with a higher rate of live lane stops, and where places to stop in an emergency are furthest apart.
6. Considering a national programme to install more emergency areas on
existing smart motorways, where places to stop in an emergency are more
than one mile apart.
7. Investigating M6 Bromford viaduct and sections of the M1 to understand
what more could be done on these sections where multiple collisions
have occurred.
8 Making emergency areas more visible – all emergency areas will have a bright orange road surface, better signs on approach showing where they are, and signs within them giving information on what to do. These will be installed by the end of spring 2020.
9. Installing more traffic signs giving the distance to the next place to stop
in an emergency so you should almost always be able to see a sign (typically
these will be between 300 and 400 metres apart), helping drivers reach a safer place to stop.
10. More communication with drivers by improving public information, spending £5 million extra to further increase public awareness and understanding of smart motorways and how to use them confidently. We will ensure drivers receive advice to help them keep safe on smart motorways, including advice on what to do in a breakdown.
1.1 Displaying ‘report of obstruction’ messages automatically on electronic signs to warn oncoming drivers of a stopped vehicle ahead.
12. Displaying places to stop in an emergency on your satnav by working with satnav providers to ensure that places to stop in an emergency, such as
emergency areas, are shown on the screen of the device when needed.
13. Making it easier to call for help if broken down by working with car
manufacturers to build greater awareness and understanding of ‘eCall’
functionality, which is standard in all new cars from April 2018.
14. Completing the upgrade of digital enforcement cameras across the smart motorway network, enabling Red X signs to be enforced.
15. Updating the Highway Code to provide more guidance for motorists on smart motorway driving.
16 Closer working with the recovery industry, improving collaboration, training and procedures.
17 Reviewing existing emergency areas where the width is less than the current standard; and if feasible and appropriate we will widen to the current standard.
18. Supporting the DfT in their immediate review of the use of red flashing lights for recovery vehicles.

[Lutin]

There's nothing there that would encourage me to use a smart motorway. How many more dead do there have to be before they are seen as utterly ridiculous and beyond sense?

[KungFooBob]

The wife has just started a H&S job at a SEND college.

She found out yesterday that any vehicles carrying students are not allowed to travel on smart motorways.

I guess it's because managing the students during a breakdown is a bit like herding cats and a proper hard shoulder makes containment a little easier.

[Horse]

There's nothing there that would encourage me to use a smart motorway. How many more dead do there have to be before they are seen as utterly ridiculous and beyond sense?

Do you ever travel on dual carriageways, the ones with a mix of traffic from cyclists and tractors up to HGVs and cars, no refuge areas, no electronic signs, etc?

How many fatalities have there been, and how many were due to the road (rather than drivers not looking where they were going)?

[MrLongbeard]

There's nothing there that would encourage me to use a smart motorway. How many more dead do there have to be before they are seen as utterly ridiculous and beyond sense?

I use 3 (M5, M42 & M6) every time I go to work, coincidentally I use the same 3 on the way back, just in reverse order.

They suck balls and I hate them with a passion, except for the M6 stretch (between Cov & the M42) which has actually worked and increased the flow / speed of traffic.

[Dodgy69]

Less cars, Less hgv, More bikes,

[The Spin Doctor]

in ‘most ways’, smart motorways are at least as safe as, or safer than, the conventional motorways they replaced.

The implication is that in some ways they must therefore be less safe.

[The Spin Doctor]

There's nothing there that would encourage me to use a smart motorway. How many more dead do there have to be before they are seen as utterly ridiculous and beyond sense?

Do you ever travel on dual carriageways, the ones with a mix of traffic from cyclists and tractors up to HGVs and cars, no refuge areas, no electronic signs, etc?

How many fatalities have there been, and how many were due to the road (rather than drivers not looking where they were going)?

Rarely more than two lanes, and traffic tends to move more slowly.

[Horse]

There's nothing there that would encourage me to use a smart motorway. How many more dead do there have to be before they are seen as utterly ridiculous and beyond sense?

Do you ever travel on dual carriageways, the ones with a mix of traffic from cyclists and tractors up to HGVs and cars, no refuge areas, no electronic signs, etc?

How many fatalities have there been, and how many were due to the road (rather than drivers not looking where they were going)?

Rarely more than two lanes, and traffic tends to move more slowly.

More lanes = more opportunities to pass obstructions?

And non-mways have greater range of closing speeds on slower traffic. You might even be lucky enough to encounter pedestrians trying to cross.

[Horse]

in ‘most ways’, smart motorways are at least as safe as, or safer than, the conventional motorways they replaced.

The implication is that in some ways they must therefore be less safe.

And the explanation followed. Here's the full paragraph:

Published in March 2020, the Smart motorway safety evidence stocktake and action plan established that, in ‘most ways’, smart motorways are at least as safe as, or safer than, the conventional motorways they replaced. “However, there are individual risks within their operation that could be further reduced to improve safety and public confidence. We are determined to do all we can to make our roads as safe as possible, and we will take forward the measures set out by DfT,” said the annual report.

Luckily, the list of them was in the post.

[The Spin Doctor]

More lanes = more opportunities to pass obstructions?

What a lovely simplistic model. Have a think about these issues:

1) If we assume* that the break-down rate is equal on dual carriageways and motorways and that ALL vehicles that brake down actually come to a halt on the carriageway itself, then if there are more lanes carrying more traffic there will be a greater likelihood that PER MILE there will be more obstructions you NEED to pass. If the flow rate per lane is the same, there will be TWICE as many broken down vehicles on a four lane stretch than a two lane stretch.

I emailed you back in July that I passed TEN (IIRC )stopped vehicles on NON-smart sections of motorways between Exeter and the A40 - roughly one every twenty miles.

2) On a busy two lane dual carriageway, a breaking-down vehicle SLOWS everything behind it AS it comes to a halt because you're now trying to squeeze two lanes into one. If a vehicle breaks down on a four lane stretch of motorway in the nearside lane, then there are still three lanes to take up the slack, and vehicles can usually move out AND keep moving at speed. The problem is that now there's no OBVIOUS reduction in flow rate to warn drivers coming up to the obstruction. And then you get the truck that moves out at the last moment, uncloaking the stopped vehicle too late for the vehicle behind THAT to take evasive action.

And non-mways have greater range of closing speeds on slower traffic. You might even be lucky enough to encounter pedestrians trying to cross.

Leaving pedestrians out of it for the moment, is that true?

It's right IN THEORY but ONLY if traffic is very light - in which case you can see the slower-moving hazard and have plenty of opportunity to move to the other lane. In reality, on a reasonably busy dual carriageway, the slower vehicle acts as a pinch point which causes a back-up of slow moving traffic behind it, which can be seen and reacted to. You rarely encounter a slow-moving tractor that gets 'uncloaked' in the same way as happens on a road with more lanes.

And whilst you may encounter pedestrians, they will rarely walk straight out in front of vehicles travelling at 70 mph. They wait for a quiet moment.

* Of course, that's assuming that the breakdown rate on the carriageways is the same.

It would be interesting to know what the breakdown rate actually is. I suspect that it's higher for vehicles undertaking long journeys, given the AA / RAC advice.

There are also a lot more places to leave and enter dual carriageways that may well mean that anyone with a developing problem - such as a deflating tyre or overheating engine - can make it OFF the main carriageway before stopping.

And here's something else to think about. I did pass a broken-down car on a dual carriageway the other day. The driver had parked it on the grass at the side of the road. That's rarely possible on smart motorways since they've been widened to the limit of the 'land grab' that allowed them to be built with a hard shoulder, so the Armco is normally right at the left edge of the old hard shoulder.

As for detecting stopped vehicles, and getting warning lights up and running in 20 seconds, it was an unforgivable piece of cost-cutting, and it should be installed on ALL smart motorways immediately.

But the fact remains, you still can't alert a driver who's passed the final sign before the broken down vehicle.

Remember. I had a car written off not so long ago when I had to stop at the side of a dual carriageway ten or so years back - I couldn't quite get it completely clear of the nearside lane. About 1/4 of the car was still in the lane.

It was hit within 30 seconds. I'd only managed to get out of the drivers door and round the front of the car when another driver smashed into it. As the vehicle that passed just before the impact was an HGV, I'm pretty sure that it was 'uncloaked' too late for the driver to react.

[The Spin Doctor]

“However, there are individual risks within their operation that could be further reduced to improve safety and public confidence. We are determined to do all we can to make our roads as safe as possible, and we will take forward the measures set out by DfT,” said the annual report.[/i]

Luckily, the list of them was in the post.

No it wasn't. You just posted the list of ameliorative measures, NOT the areas in which they had been found to be MORE dangerous.

[Horse]

https://highways-news.com/smart-motorwa ... be-jailed/

The widow of a man killed in a crash on a smart motorway is urging the judge in the case not to jail the man who admitted causing the death.

The Sunday Telegraph reported that Claire Mercer will use her victim impact statement to blame Highways England because of the removal of hard shoulders on that stretch of the M1.

40 year old Prezemyslaw Zbigniew Szuba has admitted two counts of causing death by driving without due care and attention after his 18-tonne lorry hit the stationary vehicles

But note:

Jason Mercer, 44, and Alexandru Murgeanu, 22 ... had been swapping details after a minor prang when they were hit but did not go to an emergency refuge area.

At the risk of being accused of 'victim blaming', standing on a motorway to exchange details, take pics, whatever, is hardly wise. Would you do it on a dual carriageway? If you did, would you keep a watch for approaching traffic? When I work on a hard shoulder, the first thing I do when getting out of the vehicle is check to see where I can go if another vehicle leaves the carriageway.

[The Spin Doctor]

But note:

Jason Mercer, 44, and Alexandru Murgeanu, 22 ... had been swapping details after a minor prang when they were hit but did not go to an emergency refuge area.

At the risk of being accused of 'victim blaming', standing on a motorway to exchange details, take pics, whatever, is hardly wise. Would you do it on a dual carriageway? If you did, would you keep a watch for approaching traffic? When I work on a hard shoulder, the first thing I do when getting out of the vehicle is check to see where I can go if another vehicle leaves the carriageway.

Without knowing the circumstances of the 'minor prang', which could have rendered one or both undriveable, and how quickly the collision happened after the stopped, it's difficult to say what SHOULD have been done.

Ideally if you can't get to a refuge you get over the barrier, but I've mentioned my own write-off crash a few years back where someone collided with the car before my passenger had had time to get a warning triangle out (she'd just opened the boot and had to jump clear) whilst I'd only had time to get out the driver's door and walk round to the front of the car. I was bloody lucky that the car barely budged despite an impact that almost ripped the offside rear wheel off.

That happened on a dual carriageway with a good line of sight. On a smart motorway, a refuge could be a mile away - you'll recall that the trial section had them much closer together.

So far no arguments that have been put forward for all lane running suggests to me that they are anything other than far more dangerous than a motorway with a hard shoulder when an accident or breakdown happens.

[Horse]

Without knowing the circumstances of the 'minor prang', which could have rendered one or both undriveable, and how quickly the collision happened after the stopped, it's difficult to say what SHOULD have been done.

Ideally if you can't get to a refuge you get over the barrier, ... where someone collided with the car before my passenger had had time to get a warning triangle out ... whilst I'd only had time to get out the driver's door and walk round to the front of the car. almost ripped the offside rear wheel off.

That happened on a dual carriageway with a good line of sight. On a smart motorway, a refuge could be a mile away

I did a Google. There isn't much more detail easily available. Two reports suggested that the crash was close to a junction and the next refuge was 1 mile away - although that's not guaranteed.

I quite accept that in your crash the impact was very soon after you had stopped - and that's totally out of your control. This quickest I've heard of (I guess it was on CCTV or something), is collision 12 seconds after a vehicle stopped on the hard shoulder.

But whether or not, in this case, their vehicles were driveable, simply getting off the carriageway would have saved their lives.

FWIW, a few things:
- Get out of the vehicle ASAP
- Get off the carriageway ASAP
- Get away from the hard shoulder (if there is one), they're not 'safe' places
- Stand, away from the carriageway, where you can see the rear of your vehicle. If it is hit, being run over by your own vehicle would add insult to injury
- If there is a barrier, try to get over it then, if you can, stand at least 2m back
- Don't run out of fuel, the most easy of breakdowns to avoid

[Horse]

... roughly a fifth (19 percent) of incidents involving a car stopped on the hard shoulder resulted in death or serious injury. That means an average of around five such incidents a week saw people killed or hospitalised during the three-year period.

Hard shoulders are not 'safe' places.

[MrLongbeard]

But whether or not, in this case, their vehicles were driveable, simply getting off the carriageway would have saved their lives.

When my Civic was written off in the fast lane of the M42 2 years back I got out there n then to check my car was drivable, wasn't going to be leaving a lake of oil or diesel in its wake or lumps of body work in the live lane before I limped off to the hard shoulder / 1st lane.

I say "hard shoulder / 1st lane" because come to think of it I have no idea if the hard shoulder was live or not, either way we got as far over to the left as possible, exchanged details, I ripped off half of my back bumper and continued my journey.

It might not be applicable to 4 lane smart motorways, but the M42 it does with it's sometime live some times not hard shoulder, and after you've been driving on motorways for x years you don't really give any thought to if the shoulder is live or not, I just wanted to get out of the live lane and get dickheads details asap before he had a chance to try and scarper.

[Horse]

sometime live some times not hard shoulder, and after you've been driving on motorways for x years you don't really give any thought to if the shoulder is live or not

After years of driving, I struggled with the idea of driving over a solid white line.

[The Spin Doctor]

Hard shoulders are not 'safe' places.

I never said they were. I know around one in ten of all fatalities on motorways involve collisions on the hard shoulder.

But...

... roughly a fifth (19 percent) of incidents involving a car stopped on the hard shoulder resulted in death or serious injury. That means an average of around five such incidents a week saw people killed or hospitalised during the three-year period.

I'll be interested to know how that figure was derived given that according to the DfT's own stats only 403 accidents were reported as occurring on motorway hard shoulders over the ENTIRE motorway network in the UK from 2011 to 2016. That works out at 68 accidents on hard shoulders per year... or 1.3 accidents per week whether they involved injury or not - much less than the 'five incidents per week' that your figures suggest caused death or injury.

From the DfT stats, only 38 of those 403 collisions had a fatality involved, so slightly less than one in ten of the total number, and if that 38 is divided by six years, you get 6.3 fatalities PER YEAR. Divide that by 52 and what you get is 0.12 people killed per week.

Although it's only fatals recorded, and not injuries, that is an order of magnitude LESS than your quoted figure.

Although it was not recorded just where on the M6 the crashes happened, the same set of DfT figures indicated that 56 of the 403 total happened on the M6, equating to 14% of all hard shoulder accidents in the UK. At the time, the M6 was one of the few motorways with a long stretch of ‘smart motorway’ between junction 4 and 13, with a mix of ‘all lane running’ and ‘dynamic hard shoulders’.

You also need to know just how many vehicles are stopped on hard shoulders. I can't find that figure. But you'll recall I made a count on a journey along the M5/m4 earlier this year and in the 100 miles of my journey over about two hours, I saw TEN stopped vehicles on a hard shoulder.

There are there are just over 2000 miles of motorway. A very crude calculation would suggest that if there are ten stopped vehicles over a two hour period on 100 miles of the network, then there could be 200 stopped in the same period over the entire network, so in 24 hours that could make no less than 2400 stopped vehicles EVERY DAY. That would make 16800 per week.

If there were 403 stops that resulted in a collision, then 16400 vehicles stopped and were either recovered without incident or got moving again.

[Horse]

Hard shoulders are not 'safe' places.

I never said they were. I know around one in ten of all fatalities on motorways involve collisions on the hard shoulder.

I never said that you did. However, a lot of people have that belief and it is wrong, badly wrong.

... roughly a fifth (19 percent) of incidents involving a car stopped on the hard shoulder resulted in death or serious injury. That means an average of around five such incidents a week saw people killed or hospitalised during the three-year period.

I'll be interested to know how that figure was derived

Google a e few words from the quote, then you'll know as much as I do.