No more 'Smart' Motorways.

[Barry14UK]

Well that's good news isn't it?  However, instead of abandoning the existing 'Smart' Motorways as those relatives of drivers who  lost their lives on them and many others want, the intention is to keep them but create more emergency pull offs!  So what happens if your car breaks down when you are in the middle or fast 3rd overtaking lane and there is a line of lorries/cars occupying the slow or middle lane and you don't have sufficient time or momenten to reach one of these pull ins or come to that, you break down in the slow lane but can't reach the pull in? It must be Politicians who ultimately take these decisions and must be held to account, regardless of who tells them they will  be dangerous still, which included the AA.   

[eightk]

It is definitely good news we’re having no more stupid smart M ways but re the existing ones I suspect it’s down to cost benefit. Converting entire live lanes back into hard shoulders will cost millions more than adding extra emergency areas… and we’d be stuck with even more roadworks.

[eric skerritt]

Just put the 'X' sign above on the gantry above which should then create a hard shoulder. Unless I'm missing something.

[stringbender]

I bet they won't be switching off the cash registers - err,  I mean speed cameras. The speeding fines will still be rolling out and the cash rolling in.

[Malc1]

1 hour ago, eightk said:

and we’d be stuck with even more roadworks.

Andy .....  it's enforced speed slowing mechanisms that don't cost the earth to bring about ...............  bit like speed humps and the ever emerging potholes everywhere that just give effect to " speed limiting " and in the end, for the Purists ...  Road Safety at minimal costs ....  simple effective speed reduction programmes  

Am I being serious here one wonders 😉

Malc

[Barry14UK]

27 minutes ago, eric skerritt said:

Just put the 'X' sign above on the gantry above which should then create a hard shoulder. Unless I'm missing something.

Takes time to get 'X' up on gantry, meanwhile stranded drivers at risk of being hit  between gantries.  Deaths have shown these roads are dangerous and will continue to be so.  Suggest that they use cash from projected Smart Motorways towards reinstating hard shoulders. 'They' are happy to justify speed limits to 'save lives', so why not here - cash?

[08ISF]

Hooray, can the chill wind of common sense be starting to blow in Westminster?

After being told from the outset by police and motoring organisations that smart motorways weren't a good idea, wasting many hundreds of millions of  (our) pounds and killing a few people, they've now agreed that they are unsafe. And we're expected to vote for these people??

In law if you are told by a professional that something is unsafe and you carry on with it, does that not render you liable for action for negligence??

And if new ones are not being built because they are unsafe, does that not mean that the existing ones are also unsafe?