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Smart motorways


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Travelling down a length of smart motorway everyone was moving along fine.Speed limits above carriageway seemed to be working.All 4 lanes were in use.

However what happens if you have a breakdown or puncture.I know there are emergency refuse points.But what happens if you'e not near one?

 

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24 minutes ago, Lloyd90 said:

What’s a smart motorway?

is it just when it says “Congestion - use hard shoulder” when it gets busy? 

Adjustable speed limits to improve flow and in some places hardshoulder use. Vastly cheaper than rebuilding with an extra lane or two, but needs monitoring so the hardshoulder can be shut when people break down. 

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I've found them useless to be fair, I've noticed no huge improvement at rush hour and have found they enforce ridiculously low speed limits at times when there's no need, for instance on the M4 near Newport I've seen 20mph speed limit at 5 in the morning because workers were on the other side of the motorway, that leads to you nearly getting rear ended by people ignoring the speed limit coming up behind you so your left with the option of getting hit or getting a speeding ticket by one of the cameras hidden behind the grantries

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1 hour ago, 12gauge82 said:

I've found them useless to be fair, I've noticed no huge improvement at rush hour and have found they enforce ridiculously low speed limits at times when there's no need, for instance on the M4 near Newport I've seen 20mph speed limit at 5 in the morning because workers were on the other side of the motorway, that leads to you nearly getting rear ended by people ignoring the speed limit coming up behind you so your left with the option of getting hit or getting a speeding ticket by one of the cameras hidden behind the grantries

Try using the m42 . It used to be stop start to Birmingham but I can drive Tamworth to Solihull in 20 mins at 9am . It’s shocking as that’s fast. Anything up to 2hours in the past . 

I admit sometimes you want to overtake and can’t because of getting a ticket /points but it means missing the junction. 

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Still so much safer than ordinary roads. Traffic should be going all the same way, no sharp bends a barrier between opposing flows.

3 minutes ago, steve d said:

I was always taught to have an escape route/lane on either side of me should the **** hit the fan, if the hard shoulder is already in use it makes it more dangerous imo

 

On 1/8/2018 at 09:30, 12gauge82 said:

Agreed, I have defiantly found "smart" motorways to be dangours motorways on occasion.

 

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On the variable speed limits: I remember seeing and working out the cause of the wave effect caused when somebody would brake.  It was later found through modelling and formal observation that this wave effect could travel back several miles which is what caused the apparently random stop/ start, brake/ acceleration we used to experience all the time.  Remember that?

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On 6 January 2018 at 20:57, 12gauge82 said:

I've found them useless to be fair, I've noticed no huge improvement at rush hour and have found they enforce ridiculously low speed limits at times when there's no need, for instance on the M4 near Newport I've seen 20mph speed limit at 5 in the morning because workers were on the other side of the motorway, that leads to you nearly getting rear ended by people ignoring the speed limit coming up behind you so your left with the option of getting hit or getting a speeding ticket by one of the cameras hidden behind the grantries

Totally agree, they slow traffic down, cause accidents and have only one purpose, speeding fines!!!

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