Dear All,
You might have heard in the press earlier this week that the government have decided to scrap “smart” motorways!
Great news! …right?
Well sadly,not really :-(
Apparently it was a campaign promise of Rishi Sunak to scrap smart motorways altogether…
He’s a good bloke, you see, who’s able to see basic sense.
He also really cares about all the wrongful deaths which have been caused by the criminal profiteering of the government.
Yeah, right!
As ever with government types, all is not as its spun.
Have you ever known a politician to truly follow through with their campaign promises?
Me neither. And it seems that Sunak and co don’t plan to break with that tradition.
They’ve stated the reasons for “banning” smart motorways are twofold; money and safety.
On the money front, I think the only logical conclusion can be that the anticipated revenue doesn’t justify the cost to build new smart motorways.
In other words, Motorists have caught on and simply don’t trigger the cameras enough anymore to make the tax by stealth viable.
More sinisterly though, they appear to pretend to care about safety by scrapping 14 planned smart motorways, and “banning” the building of future ones.
However, they DON’T plan to get rid of the smart motorways that already exist!
Why?
It seems fairly obvious its because that would cost money, with no financial return on the investment.
Surely basic logic tells us that if its too dangerous to create new smart motorways, then the ones that already exist are *also* too dangerous, and should be immediately decommissioned?
But basic logic doesn’t seem to be these peoples field of expertise!
As I’ve been pointing out since “smart motorways” were first introduced in the UK, the people behind them really are criminals with blood on their hands.
It seems they are completely detached from reality, and this causes them to act with the interests of themselves, their friends, and financiers at heart.
I’d be fascinated to get your views on this story in the comments below:
All the best,
Adam
would be interesting to see what the actual business case was for smart motorways
and whose friends got the contracts
Good point.
Waiting for investigative journalism to cover these specific angles.
It seems that every single road improvement scheme causes 2 more problems plus a cost penalty. I wonder if the Romans who built many of our roads had this problem.
Smart Motorways were a good scheme with the massive increase in traffic. It aides traffic flow and keeps vehicles moving. Modern vehicles are much more reliable, so breakdowns are rare. It is worth taking the safety risk that is small.
Not everybody has a ‘modern vehicle’ ….
it’s OK creating so called smart motorways but how come they don’t think to actually maintain the roads already in operation.
Hi Trev, I presume you have never had to stop on a Smart motorway to experience the Danger, This subject is does not need an enquiry , its the difference between black and white ,
Obvious, There is no escape ,
How far does a vehicle travel at 70mph in 1 second , if you don’t know I’ll tell you. let me know.
If that is the case then it is the authority (Highways England) that should accept their responsibility as they increased the risk factor through their dangerous designs & should be sued in court by grieving families under A Duty OF CARE just as a private company would be.
I have said from day one that it has always been about scamming motorists out of their hard earned cash rather than actually improving the flow of traffic and safety, I have lost count of the times when the speed limit has been reduced and the sign says things like debris in the road and there is none, So once people started complaining they then changed it to report of debris in the road to make it look like a motorist has rang them and reported it so it now looks like their only doing their job by slowing the traffic, how many times have they reduced the speed yet the road ahead is clear or forgot to turn the signs off and reset the speed limit after an incident has been sorted out, I have always said Smart Motorways run by Dumb Bastards.
I’m just glad I don’t live in the UK anymore in Spain we don’t have such things as money making smart motorways and speed cameras everywhere and if you do get caught speeding you only pay a fine no points given, oh and the weather’s better.
Hi Dave,
Fortuneatly, the EU paid for the Spanish motorways. The UK contributed to that before Brexit. The weather is certainly better depending where you live. Galicia and even Madrid can be very cold. The famous saying about Madrid is 6 months of Winter and 6 months of Hell, because it is so cold in winter, I had snow chains just to get out of my garage and without aircon or a pool you melt. Ibiza is great in summer, not too hot, but a very long winter and short summer season. In my opinion Andalusia is the best, proper Spain. Double double parking no problem, three or four deep, ok if your not the one blocked in. Wouldn’t happen in UK. Also in UK we don’t have the infamous “Grua”, someone calls the Police and a truck comes along and lifts your car onto the truck and its gone. Sit in a cafe and shout Grua, and watch everyone scramble for their cars. Viva Espana.
Too many people have died on these roads, and they need to be removed completely ASAP.
I wholly agree with you.
Interesting. How about “too many people have died on these roads and the people who run into them should be banned from driving forever because they aren’t paying enough attention”?
Suppose you’re not interested in that though, as it doesn’t fit the page’s ‘Goverment scamming the poor old motorist’ agenda.
The operators of the “smart motorways” claim that they can close a lane off in two minutes!!! Which is great if everybody is following the two second rule! It means that if yu do break down you will only potentially get rammed by 60 vehicles. That is assuming that motorists do keep the closed lanes clear and experience tells me that they don’t.
The operators of the “smart motorways” claim that they can close a lane off in two minutes!!! Which is great if everybody is following the two second rule! It means that if yu do break down you will only potentially get rammed by 60 vehicles. That is assuming that motorists do keep the closed lanes clear and experience tells me that they don’t.
But how long does it take to reopen them once the obstruction has been removed. 1 or 2 hours or more?
Adam, agree completely with your commentary and how the fundamental anti-car fascism has completely taken over all areas of administration and government leading to nonsensical policies.
So many (younger?) people are now so brainwashed into the mantra, cars = evil. (Except of course when they need to use one!)
So many examples now of motorists being used as easy prey. Look at how much money has been generated by the LTNs; multi-millions each year.
This obsession hasn’t stopped the fleecing of motorists at an unprecedented level to feed the greedy friends of ministers and councillors, who then look for favours when leaving office.
There no longer seems to be effective representation by motoring organisations and significant interested parties, e.g. disabled peoples’ groups,
Until that changes, or a minister gets badly affected by all of this, then how is the situation going to improve?
“Smart” “SMART” ? You must be joking. What a total misnomer. They are about as smart as the barely visible in the rain, not to mention snow, blob of paint on the road round abouts.
What sort of deranged “Smart” ass idiot mindlessly thinks these things up, and gets paid for it in the lives of others?
Never was anything smart about these motorways.
Completely agree with you. The dangers far outweigh any benefits.
They should put the hard shoulders back and repaint the lines etc.
I won’t use the M23 Smart Motorway due to breaking down on the motorway in fog and that was with a hard shoulder.
Not now its a smart motorway.
You have enough cars driving at night and in fog with no rear lights on.
Not alone breakdown with no rear lights on in fog with no hard shoulder.
No rear lights on then the dash board should not be lit
Smart motors we did ok with out them.
All drives put on their Hazard lights as the traffic slowed down.
The problem is we have also is we have no lane displine starting we new drivers to the uk and yound drivers now.
Inside lane can be the clearest lane.
Middle lane is for Prius cabs it seems
If these motorways are that smart and they wanted to make some with smart money with cameras.
Lane Hogging would make some money!!
it’s OK creating so called smart motorways but how come they don’t think to actually maintain the roads already in operation. Instead they create havoc to drivers with major delays. What is all the rubbish with reducing motorway speeds for so called air pollution in certain areas. Surely if vehicles travel slower they’re actually in that area longer creating more pollution not less!!
I’d like to know who is the demented idiot who suggested them in the 1st place! He/she has got a lot of blood on their hands.
These smart motorways are not about easing congestion, it’s all about the gantries, they are the reason, smart motorways are just the excuse for the gantries. The gantries carry the cameras for surveillance and prosecution and ultimately control. The day will come when they can control your car remotely and that is the reason for the gantries. Control and surveillance is the name of the game.
Completely agree with you, it,s all about raising revenue from the cameras. At the same time they are taking licences away for extremely minor offences. The points system was brought in years ago before the proliferation of revenue generating cameras. The offence of exceeding the speed limit should be modernised, I would suggest that minor infractions could be still dealt with fines.
A new offence of inappropriate speeding would be dealt with fines and points.
Driver awareness and concentration is far more a matter of road safety than somebody driving a few miles per hour above a speed limit that on many occasions is completely out of touch with reality
Absolutely agree with you 100% Adam
Don’t drive in the nearside lane of any smart motorway: simples!
By boycotting one lane, if everyone does it, it then becomes the hardshoulder by default?
Totally agree with you Adam.
At the end of the day, any words that come from the mouths of politicians are lies. We know this from history – their lips are moving.
When I heard the news about scrapping future Smart Motorways, I tried to start a Petition, but not having done this before, I have no way of getting out to the general public, so it hasn’t really got off the ground.
https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/reinstate-hard-shoulders-on-smart-motorways-for-safety
smart motorways were never going to work, no hard shoulder to escape when broken down, lane closure signs few and far between so colisions bound to happen, i only traveled on one a few years ago and never again, whitevan broken down no mention of it nearly colided with it, again no warnings at all.I felt very lucky to get off without getting hurt others havent been so lucky. what works abroad wont work here we have 3 lanes they have 4+ in any direction.
As matter of interest does this problem arise in other European countries: if so re the risks the same?
The original business case was a report in the early noughties saying that U.K. needs more motorways than were planned and the money to build them was not available. Converting the hard shoulder was about a third of the cost of proper widening as no land purchases and fewer new bridges are required. That was the business case.
Safety was supposed to be ensured by a lay-by every half mile, the cameras and monitoring (then trusting drivers to pay attention, understand and obey a red X). This might have been made to work if properly communicated. But. But. The lay-bys interval was extended to up to 1.2 miles to save money and monitoring has been poor because of inadequate technology and cost cutting of the people in boxes staring at screens. Trust has gone and now we are all going to throw good money after bad cost saving.
What is worse is that the lay-by interval is only going up to one mile, and some of the motorways under construction/alteration will open with the two km (1.6 mile) interval. To my thinking, this is the worst thing. On a motorway if you are in the carriageway, you are trapped between the crash barriers. You and all your passengers have to climb over to get to proper safety- hence the advice to stay in your car.
I really don’t know about the’secret business case’ including the extra money raised by fines, but it would be tiny compared with the other cost/benefit aspects.
The original business case was a report in the early noughties saying that U.K. needs more motorways than were planned and the money to build them was not available. Converting the hard shoulder was about a third of the cost of proper widening as no land purchases and fewer new bridges are required.
Safety was supposed to be ensured by a lay-by every half mile, the cameras and monitoring (then trusting drivers to pay attention, understand and obey a red X). This might have been made to work if properly communicated. But…… The lay-bys interval was extended to up to 1.2 miles to save money and monitoring has been poor because of inadequate technology and cost cutting of the people in boxes staring at screens. Trust has gone and now we are all going to throw good money after bad cost saving.
What is worse is that the lay-by interval is only going up to one mile, and some of the motorways under construction/alteration will open with the two km (1.6 mile) interval. To my thinking, this is the worst thing. On a motorway if you are in the carriageway, you are trapped between the crash barriers. You and all your passengers have to climb over to get to proper safety- hence the advice to stay in your car.
I really don’t know about the’secret business case’ including the extra money raised by fines, but it would be tiny compared with the other cost/benefit aspects.
I’m sure that they will finally close all the “Smart Motorways” when there is an accident that kills ten or more people. Meanwhile, I shall try to avoid them.
Surely it would be possible to close the left hand lane by means of the appropriate signal on the overhead gantries.
Problem solved a zero cost !
What is bleeding obvious to anyone with more than half a brain is sometimes not obvious to self serving politicians. Rishi Sunak is obviously an improvement on his 2 predecessors but is unlikely to really tackle problems where a lot of public money is required. I avoid dumb (I mean smart , a slip of the tongue) motorways wherever possible. This puts pressure on A roads. The guy running the AA is so much more intelligent and articulate than these politicians but they generally ignore him. He has been opposing smart motorways for many years.
What was the financial incentive behind building smart motorways in the first place?
One obvious answer is that they could increase road capacity by 33% without any massive additional funding (and often unachievable purchase of extra land plus associated costs). The distraction was that they quoted the “real reason” as being about safety. This is total bullshit! You do not need a degree in planning to know how utterly dangerous and unsafe this scheme has been.
I thought good drivers didn’t drive on the inside lane of smart motorways.
I agree with your assessment, Adam. My own view is that Smart Motorways are operated by idiots:
hence the drawbacks.
This is what we get by allowing ourselves to be stripped of our Freedoms like we have over the last century. And how many “English” politicians are even True English these days? We are being further and further enslaved by a corrupt system that favours others over we natives!