Let's go back to having hard shoulders everywhere. Getting rid of them was sheer madness. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-51242202/how-safe-are-smart-motorways
I try to avoid smart motorways, but sofar they are impossible to miss. They are everywhere.......... apart from Scotland. Hate the places like tooth ache.
I've only used them twice both times when travelling down to visit my daughter, it was an unnerving experience on both occasions, never ending speed limit changes and just so many lanes. Luckily I don't do a lot of motorway driving now. I don't like them but I guess the far south would grind to a halt without the extra lane now.
I do quite a lot of short motorway driving these days. I haven’t really seen any sign of them up here in the N.West. What happens if you need to use a hard shoulder on one of these things? And how does SMART systems compensate for no hard shoulder?
In this day and age of air pollution fears, smart motorways are a definite no-no as the continuous start and stop, slow down - accelerate, do create more noxious gases than they are meant produce. In my mind, just an opinion, smart motorways, with their surreptious speed cameras, are another way to milk drivers of their money. The "safety" is all a big lie. This morning, returning from taking my wife to her work's minibus, I could not fail to observe a speed van in full operation at 6.32am... On a semi deserted road......... It has been proven, now, without doubt, that smart motorways are not smart at all but a danger to drivers that venture on them by necessity, as one cannot really avoid them, once on a motorway, due to the "strategically placed" bit....
