Smart Motorways? I think not

Driving round the country last week I was struck by the change in motorway driving culture in England. Living on Jersey for some months of the year, I don’t drive much. The island is nine x five miles with one dual carriageway and the speed limit on (not very many of) its roads is 40 miles an hour.  The limit in some of the country lanes is 15 mph, which doesn’t encourage one to want to drive far, easier to walk or take the bus. In addition, the main roads east and west are heavily congested, because this is an island that has more cars on it than people. 17th birthday? Give that child a car. Bonus time in the financial sector? Watch the Porsche’s arriving into the dealer showroom. So, driving in Jersey is a bit of a joke. It can take 40 minutes to cover 3 miles at rush hour, but the upside is, it’s relatively safe.

Driving in France, where we spend much of the summer is a pleasure. In the big cities drivers are cutthroat - Paris, Lyon and Marseille are to be avoided at all costs, but in the southwest countryside where we live, the roads are almost empty apart from massive farm machinery, taking up a lane and a half.  However, the long straight roads make it easy to overtake, and for the most part, French discipline on autoroutes is impressive. Yes, the French drive at speed and don’t tolerate idiots holding them up, but the overtaking rule is pull out and pull back in, none of the hogging the middle or the outside lane. If the person ahead of you comes up behind a lorry, we will all overtake in convoy, and if faster cars want to overtake us, we will indicate and slip back into the pack. I enjoy driving in France and can drive hundreds of miles without stress or tiredness. It’s a pleasure.

Quite the opposite awaits us in England. No pleasure and maximum stress. Lane discipline and speed limit observance is almost non-existent. Last week, on day one of my annual Christmas pilgrimage I drove from Portsmouth to Essex. It started well enough first thing in the morning after I arrived on the overnight ferry from Jersey. The traffic wasn’t too bad, partly because there had been a slight snowfall and partly because there was a train strike, so maybe people were working from home. The first part of the journey on the A3 went well. Apart from the usual cowboys bombing along at 100 miles an hour, most drivers were quite cautious as there was still snow on the verges. Then we reached the M25 which was a very different story.

It's over 20 years since I lived in England and when I pay flying visits, it’s usually a weekend flight/train/taxi. My annual pilgrimage to see family was extended this year and I brought the car. The M25 is a shock to the system. Known as a ‘smart’ motorway it has no hard shoulder anymore, only refuges at certain points along the way, 1.6 miles apart. As an outsider, coming to this system is quite scary as it seems to have changed the way the English drive, making motorways more dangerous than before. Official statistics have shown an increase in accidents since the inception of the smart motorways five or six years ago, and following public and motoring organisations protests, conversion of existing ones has currently ceased pending further studies. Proportionately, a higher number of deaths have occurred on hard-shoulder-free motorways in the last seven years, than on the majority of British roads. The number of near misses has also increased dramatically, from 1,485 near misses since the overhaul – incidents “with the potential to cause injury or ill health.” In the previous five years, there were just 72[1].

 I can bear witness to near misses.  I was following an SUV in the third lane on the M25 when it pulled out to overtake. As I moved to follow, it shot back into the third lane and as it did so I saw an abandoned car in the fourth and fastest lane. It was frightening.

The overhead gantries govern speeds and which lanes one can use, but speed limits are often ignored, and more worryingly, so is the red cross displayed on the gantry, which indicates that a lane is closed. An element of the motoring fraternity, who are convinced that the rules apply only to others, not to them, shoot under those red crosses, enjoying the clear run, presumably until they encounter the obstacle, indicated by the red cross, when of course, they will inconvenience and endanger the second lane by pushing in. I've noticed that to a large extent, lane discipline, never brilliant, has gone to pot. Drivers seem happy to sit in lanes two, three and four with the first line nearly empty in places. Which gives lots of opportunities for the ‘undertakers’ of the motoring world to weave in and out of the lanes more frequently than ever before.

But it’s the lorries where I see the biggest change. On the old motorways, it was always a nuisance when one slow lorry was overtaking an even slower lorry, leaving only the third lane for cars. Now I notice lorries using lanes one and two as a matter of course, then three abreast to overtake, and in one case on my recent travels all four lanes being taken up with these giants. It used to be illegal for heavy vehicles to be in the overtaking lane. Perhaps there has been a change in the law, perhaps not, but it certainly doesn’t assist the flow of traffic, an advantage claimed to justify the abolition of the hard shoulder.

We are told that technology will compensate for losing the hard shoulder, but no amount of technology can help if a car breaks down in the fast lane of a smart motorway. It may be that it can limp across lanes into the slow lane, but then what if there’s no refuge for a mile? I saw three such incidents in the slow lane with the gantry indicating that the lane was closed. How does that assist the flow of traffic?

We are further informed that the government is upgrading existing technology, more cameras, more everything, to assist the Highways Agency to manage traffic flow long distance. All good and sensible steps, but which still avoids the elephant in the room – that the hard shoulder is essential for the safe running of the motorways. Research carried out for the RAC Report on Motoring 2021 found that six in 10 drivers (62%) think that all-lane-running smart motorway schemes should be scrapped entirely and the hard shoulder reinstated, while retaining the technology that manages traffic flows and detects breakdowns.

Only a quarter of the 2,600-plus drivers (24%) surveyed by the RAC support the continuation of current government policy, which is to stick to four permanent running lanes and no hard shoulder, while increasing the number of emergency refuge areas and including extra technology to detect stationary vehicles and cameras to catch motorists who put others at risk by ignoring closed-lane signs.

Overall, most drivers (63%) do not believe the measures being implemented by National Highways to compensate for the removal of the hard shoulder – such as variable speed limits in response to incidents or to control traffic flow, closed-lane signs, SOS emergency refuge areas up to every 1.6 miles apart and technology to detect slowing or stationary vehicles – are adequate. And neither do I!

Happy Christmas everyone and take care on those unsmart motorways, because they won’t take care of you!

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[1] https://www.rac.co.uk/drive/news/motoring-news/38-people-killed-on-smart-motorways-in-last-five-years-bbc-panorama-reveals/

🚗. 🚙🚚🛻🚘🚖🚗🚙🚌🚚🚘🚖

What I’ve enjoyed this year

This year I read The Ship of Brides by Jojo Moyes , a fictional account of young Australian women being shipped to England to reunite with the British servicemen they had met and married during WW2. It’s a captivating story and it sticks in my mind, as does:-

The Woman in the White Kimono by Ana Johns. Told in two timelines, it’s a story of two women and I can’t do it better justice than quote this from the Barnes and Noble website - ‘In breathtaking prose and inspired by true stories from a devastating and little-known era in Japanese and American history, The Woman in the White Kimono illuminates a searing portrait of one woman torn between her culture and her heart, and another woman on a journey to discover the true meaning of home.’

and for a bit of light-hearted fun, you could gallop through ‘Tell Me Everything’ by Laura Kay, who was an LWS interviewee a couple of months ago. I really enjoyed knowing that other people have messy lives.

I’ve been watching lots of drama on tv this year, but the standout for me is The Serpent Queen on Lionsgate with Samantha Morton as Catherine de Medici. She is stunning in the role, mesmerising in fact. Can’t wait for the next series.

I haven’t seen many films this year but the one that impressed me most was Boiling Point with Stephen Graham in the role as a head chef and Vinette Robinson as his deputy. The unique feature of this film (and it leaves you breathless when you watch it with this knowledge) is that the 90 minutes was shot in ONE TAKE! Shot in an open kitchen of a small restaurant, in very claustrophobic surroundings, the staff deal with mini-crises as their boss falls apart. Brilliant!

Have a wonderful Christmas if you celebrate it and I wish you a happy and healthy 2023! Thanks for reading to the end!