Smart motorway roulette Saturday night
Discussion
Because it has already cost millions to install, cost millions of people hours and hours extra while their pathetic village is built for 5 years on the M1/25 etc etc, so admitting it is flawed means you can sue them, and we can't have that can we that basically means the government are also culpable, all the research they did was flawed, the ministers and departments who said yes would be culpable.
far better to just poo poo the naysayers, and quietly give out a few million to the few people strong enough to shout about how dangerous they are, usually relatives of people who have died needlessly as a result of the road systems utter failure.
What staggers me is the amount of them STILL being built simply to stop government paying cancellation clauses no doubt built into the contracts to build them anyway.
far better to just poo poo the naysayers, and quietly give out a few million to the few people strong enough to shout about how dangerous they are, usually relatives of people who have died needlessly as a result of the road systems utter failure.
What staggers me is the amount of them STILL being built simply to stop government paying cancellation clauses no doubt built into the contracts to build them anyway.
I can see the rationale for smart motorways Vs buying land to physically extend every motorway way each side (plus widening bridges, tunnels etc)
But the premise on which it was sold politically was obviously a lie, or undeliverable or over promised by the sales team.
As for this closure...on the face of it it seems highways England (or whatever they are now) are being quite blasé about risk.
Odd, given they'll shut a motorway to pick up a wing mirror.
I assume all the north of England is on one switch (and the south on another?) so there's no way to further stagger this shut down?
Also, they could conceivably come off a lane in advance to be used for emergencies, and reopen it afterwards.
But I doubt enough cones exist in the UK, yet alone capacity to put them all out and pick them a up again
I hope at least they're increasing patrols - they could shift staff up from unaffected areas, and have as many "big flashy sign" (?) lorries spaced out on standby.
At least Saturday night/ Sunday early hours is likely to be light traffic, albeit night time
Ian
But the premise on which it was sold politically was obviously a lie, or undeliverable or over promised by the sales team.
As for this closure...on the face of it it seems highways England (or whatever they are now) are being quite blasé about risk.
Odd, given they'll shut a motorway to pick up a wing mirror.
I assume all the north of England is on one switch (and the south on another?) so there's no way to further stagger this shut down?
Also, they could conceivably come off a lane in advance to be used for emergencies, and reopen it afterwards.
But I doubt enough cones exist in the UK, yet alone capacity to put them all out and pick them a up again
I hope at least they're increasing patrols - they could shift staff up from unaffected areas, and have as many "big flashy sign" (?) lorries spaced out on standby.
At least Saturday night/ Sunday early hours is likely to be light traffic, albeit night time
Ian
king ridiculous. Are the signs really that unreliable? What if the 'reboot' doesn't have the expected result? How often are these signs going to go wrong? These roads are dangerous. The government is putting more lives at risk.None of this would be a problem if the original principle of smart motorways with hard shoulder running only at busy times had been followed. I still don’t understand what’s gained by permanent All Lane Running: does it really matter if a road is 3 or 4 lanes wide in the middle of the night?
Tommo87 said:
Getragdogleg said:
Why cant they just admit it doesn't work ?
Or do we need to wait until the new Labour government gets in and they reverse it so the current lot can save face ?
Good luck with that assumption.Or do we need to wait until the new Labour government gets in and they reverse it so the current lot can save face ?
alangla said:
Tommo87 said:
Getragdogleg said:
Why cant they just admit it doesn't work ?
Or do we need to wait until the new Labour government gets in and they reverse it so the current lot can save face ?
Good luck with that assumption.Or do we need to wait until the new Labour government gets in and they reverse it so the current lot can save face ?
alangla said:
None of this would be a problem if the original principle of smart motorways with hard shoulder running only at busy times had been followed. I still don’t understand what’s gained by permanent All Lane Running: does it really matter if a road is 3 or 4 lanes wide in the middle of the night?
Yep those ones do seem the safest (as they basically default to a normal motorway unless there's heavy traffic, where it's then moving fairly slowly anyway).It surely could have been a lot cheaper to install a system with the usual 3 lanes + hard shoulder, which runs as a normal motorway - then if traffic starts slowing down, having signs switching on displaying something like "50mph, Use hard shoulder".
No need for expensive, complicated systems, radar, etc etc etc as the hard shoulder would only become a running lane when speeds are already low due to congestion and the 50 limit in force.
By the way, it's funny how the only bit of the whole system that seems to work as intended are the speed cameras!
Gassing Station | News, Politics & Economics | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff