Smart Motorways | Left Lane Anyone? 

You should, and they will close a lane off until you have emerged safely. The example looked like it was a stop for a different reason to a breakdown. Nice point 👍🏼

Correct. Never, ever try to emerge from a refuge area into a live lane. Call Highways and get them to operate a temporary lane closure, unless of course you want to be smashed to smithereens by an approaching artic.

@@koreainsincere if only they'd thought of putting in a hard shoulder...the traffic congestion and hold ups caused by trying to get a vehicle back into a smart motorway are unbelievable, believe me I've been stuck in the aftermath of it! All that massive disruption closing a lane and having to wait for the traffic plebs to turn up just to get 1 vehicle back on, has to be seen to be believed! There's no way this is 'smart', we've gone backwards!

@@mk1aquatic739 Couldn't agree more!

I hate these roads. The speed limits make no sense (even when you have another driver 10 miles up the road). People get confused and are in the wrong lanes. People make mistakes and people die. I agree we need something different, but the old hard shoulder method was safer. Sure theres more congestion that way, but peoples lives are more important then a slightly faster journey.

And that HE are smart, too.

Built on the cheap, save the trouble and money building new lane, So nick the safety breakdown/ medical emergency lane, it's playing "Russian roulette motoring."

My issue with them is how speed limits can change so quickly and drastically, forcing braking when it isn't needed. Should never really brake on a motorway.

The 'smart ' part of a smart motorway is a person. An operator. An unreliable, distraction prone human being, watching screens. Its bloody dangerous. It has cost lives. If you find yourself with a dying car on a smart motorway and you're not fortunate enough to be within reachable distance of the one-per-mile refuge areas, my advice is, get into he left lane if you can, hazards lights, exit nearside door, run upstream about half a mile, get away from the carriageway but still within sight of traffic and do whatever you can to warn any traffic that there is a problem ahead. Because you are the first on scene. You could save lives. It really is that serious.

@@ianhill4585 the bridges aren’t wide enough!!

My father once had the sidewall of his rear tyre just fail unexpectedly and explode. A car with a flapping around tyre will not be able to keep up doing 60-70 for a whole mile to a refuge point. At best in that situation, you would be limping at 20-30 in the far left lane but with large lorries having to dramatically slow down or change lane to not hit you. I think Smart Motorways are a poor idea as we shouldn't exchange safety (and the hard shoulder concept everyone is familiar with) for a small improvement in congestion. No matter how many lanes you add, it doesn't improve the traffic. We've seen it all before.

I don't like the smart motorways at all bring back the old school of motorway driving with the hard shoulder only used for emergency break downs I have never have liked them or trusted them 1 bit they are evil

Oh yeah, same here. Following speed limit ,you get abused and tailgated. 30 and 40 is worst.

My father once pointed out that there's a bit of observational bias here. You see all of the cars overtaking you. You do not see all of the cars that are doing the same speed as you.

@@JdeBP Agree with both points, but I've definitely found that there's something about 40 limits that people just can't abide. They think it means they can do 50. I drive in and out of Manchester a lot, and the A580 is 40 mph for a really long way into Manchester, even though it's dual carriageway. The reason is because of how busy it is, how many junctions it has, the fact that really built-up residential areas feed directly onto it. You'll be very hard pressed to find anyone who sticks to 40 on it though. Except, of course, when they see a big yellow speed camera box at the side of the road.

@@JdeBP try doing the speed limit for several miles, just see how many drive up your backside or beep and flash you. it might just be in my area but i think not

same here - if the speed limit were 200mph and I were doing that, there would be some knob flashing me to get out of the way

Tony, good to hear that you are able to reflect and be critical of yourself. Have a look for some blue light runs by emergency services on youtube, they talk so calmly yet under immense pressure and danger when driving. I tried to copy how they talk and think and it's quite calming.

Thats a long time to be driving Tony. 44 years is a very long journey

get a room you two

I hope you are not driving a lorry. They have limits on how long you can drive for and I'm pretty sure 45 years is over the limit. On a serious note, I love the adrenaline and stress. Makes me feel alive.

Good, you need to calm down.

Yeah that’s a HUGE issue here in the states

@@gardenstatePR Same thing in Australia. Lane discipline is not very good.

Yep. I think there's a huge psychological aversion to getting stuck behind slower vehicles in Lane 1. Even when there are none in sight people won't take the chance and stay in the overtaking lanes.

@@gardenstatePR I've been driving in US for many years and unlike the brits there's never an issue with lane hoggers. They just pass on either side.

@@MrJohnny3shoes what part of the US do you live in if you don’t mind? I live in New Jersey and it’s VERY congested here, so lane hogging is a big issue

I've come to realise that age and experience is just a number with driving. I've seen terrible driving at all ages and experience levels. It all comes down to the mentality, and you can be any age or experience level to learn the correct mentality. I was 19 and already driving at a way higher standard than the majority of people because I learnt this from day one. I would see people 3x older than me driving terribly and it would infuriate me, it would rub salt in the wound. Because I was a young male driver, my insurance quotes would be 10x the amount of that "experienced" driver. But yeah, that's the biggest part of Ashleys content. He really drills in how to think correctly and like you say, it keeps us grounded as drivers.

When driving now I think WWAD? - what would Ashley do?

His dad was right back for Liverpool

@@ScottyDog345 Ashley was also on Liverpool’s books though he didn’t have any first team appearances.

Interestingly although there are issues they ultimately save lives. The reason why is quite boring though - less speeding

There are problems with Smart motorways, most of which I see as coming down to the quality of Highways Agency oversight.

It is a sad story. But her husband died because a truck driver wasn’t paying attention. Her husband joined the M1 north and had a minor RTC with a van. Both cars were drivable, but they went and stopped in a live lane. Just short of a sign saying ERA 1 mile. They then stood in the live lane. Not over the barrier away from the vehicles. Something like 130 vehicles managed to get pass them without colliding. Not one person called 999 to alert anyone. Then a truck driver, who has since been jailed, collided with them. Would they still be alive if there was a hard shoulder? Probably. Would they still be alive if the truck driver was paying attention? Would they still be alive if someone rang 999 and said there was vehicles stopped in a live lane? Probably. I feel desperately sorry for Claire Mercer, I cannot imagine what she’s going through. But to throw ALL the blame on a road design is to ignore other failings.

@@midlandsdriver9667 : It's sad how things like this, need to be explained to "adults"

What I can't understand is that someone who should be keeping their distance and observing what is going on, is it too much to ask for people to look forward, runs into the back of a stationary vehicle at high enough speed to kill and it is the roads fault!

Could he be driving an old transit with the rest of the cabinet in it?

@@highdownmartin None of them would go.

Highways agency do not monitor the smart motorways They are called smart motorways because cameras monitor the lanes and it is the cameras that determine the speed of that lane depending on how close together the traffic is or will close the lane if a vehicle is detected stationary

@@seekeroftruthandjust Yes, that does happen but they still require monitoring. There can be fatal delays in reporting, not always picked up by staff monitoring the cameras, particularly if short-staffed. This is an extract from an article on the subject. Not everything about the system is automated, though: supervision is needed to manage the use of the hard shoulder and to spot any problems as they happen, such as vehicles broken down and unable to get out of the way of traffic. The blanket CCTV coverage allows every inch of tarmac to be monitored. The CCTV cameras, and the actions of the automated computer controller, are fed into a control centre where Highways Agency staff continually monitor what's happening and can intervene or override the automatic system. They can also communicate with Highways Agency Traffic Officers on the ground and direct them towards incidents.

Staff at the Highways Agency monitoring smart motorways said that the system that detects breakdowns in live lanes was broken 3 out of the last 4 days!!

At a speed awareness course they said that when the limit changes on a gantry, it's a full minute before any speed cameras are set for that new limit. It would obviously be ridiculous to immediately enforce a speed limit that has changed without prior warning - but it only takes one person without common sense to cause a pile up in this instance

But you had to do that course to find that out…

60 seconds grace, you may still get flashed but you won’t receive anything, iv had it more than once.

Those gantries have zero grace period. If they come on even as you go past them you get flashed.

Agreed ,motoring Russian roulette.

deadly

More road workers are killed on normal motorways than smart motorways.

@@richardoakley8800 What point do you think you're making?

Smart motorways are safer. according to evidence submitted by the Department for Transport (DfT) to the Commons transport select committee inquiry into the roads, more deaths occurred on ALR motorways compared with conventional motorways during 2018 and 2019. For 2018, the fatality rate on ALR motorways was recorded at 0.19 per hundred million vehicle miles, compared with 0.14 fatalities per hundred million vehicle miles on conventional motorways. In 2019 the figures were 0.14 on ALR motorways and 0.13 on conventional motorways. Don't let silly little facts get in the way of your delusions

M25 is awful.

Totally agree with all that you wrote, especially the frustration of having to obey a limit when there is clearly no hazard other than the risk of triggering a camera. Oh and as a Canterbury resident, hope you had a pleasant time in my home town!

I agree. You should never have a high traffic, high speed road with no hard shoulder. It’s ludicrous

@@ibs5080 What a lovely place to live.

@@ibs5080 My daughter was at uni there. So it was a 'pick up and run' situation! But we're back down next month for leisure (well, to use up hotel room credit for an unused room because of cancelled graduation because of you-know-what)

A lot of the time, they're breaking up traffic waves, which is why it looks like they're "crying wolf." To make things faster counter intuitively actually makes things slower, and then you come out the other end going "where was the problem causing traffic?" I watched those traffic snakes vanish with the introduction of smart motorways in my area. I don't agree with the removal of hard shoulders though.

love ur channel richard!

Oncoming traffic is a pretty immediate and extreme danger. Shocked that an ADI suggested exceeding the speed limit was a reasonable response.

@@nathanbloke Its because 20mph on a road that wide with such extreme visibility is beyond a joke, even with the oncoming traffic. I have had contraflows without cones that had a 60 limit. Unless there is a lorry rolled over blocking at least all but one lane then its hard to argue for a limit below 40mph. Basically on a road that size the rapidly approaching traffic from behind was a greater risk than the oncoming vehicle would be. Closing speeds are hard to judge when you are going the same direction.

yea thats what worries me as a motorcyclist i dont exactly have a big metal box to protect me and i dont use a mobile phone i dont have the need for one so i'd be screwed if my grandad is alone aswell he wouldnt be able to call anyone as he also doesnt use a mobile and its probably the same with a lot of elderly drivers

Also, I would imagine the first 30sec of being Stationary are the most dangerous. I doubt the signs are capable of reacting anywhere near quickly enough.

Worth noting that in my experience, the cameras aren't switched on if there is no variable speed limit in force. "My experience" being that I've always gone past those cameras at 'normal motorway speed' when the signs are off, and never got a speeding ticket for it

@@edrose5045 As someone that drives on the M25/M3 nearly everyday, I witness camera flashes when the signs are off a few times a week, these are normally for people doing 85+

@@edrose5045 the yellow ones at the side of the gantry will work even with the signs off.

Fair enough, I stand corrected

While I can't condone the behaviour of the driver behind, I do also find it very frustrating when a 'slow' driver is in lane 3 overtaking another only slightly slower driver... You doing 70, them doing 69, and a half mile long slug of traffic in lane 3 all waiting to get past you... I know you're not doing anything illegal or wrong, and that the speeding drivers shouldn't be speeding, but still... I find the motorway MUCH less stressful when I'm passing people. I tried playing the 70mph game, and find you either end up being the one holding up lane 3 doing 70 while you pass lorry after lorry, or giving in and being stuck behind/between lorries at 55. It seems far more productive for all involved to get in lane 3, and keep up with the flow, usually high 70's upto 85, and leave the HGV's well behind to their own nonsense. The worst congestion I see when I commute is always due to someone in lane 3 driving slowly and creating this heaping effect in all the lanes behind them. It's particularly devastating when that heap reaches the end of the M18 where it merges to the M1S. Because of the heaping effect as soon as a car slows to find a spot to merge, the whole row going back a mile or more has to slow, and slow, and slow with every car that merges they get a little slower and the slower they go the harder it is to merge. Which also brings me on to drivers who seem to think "slip roads" have their own special 40, or 50 mph speed limit... so they accelerate quickly to 40, then just hold there, all the way to the end of the slip road and try to merge... Often on that same M18>M1S merge, they will slow from 70, to ~45 to merge into a free running lane, to speed back up in a panic to outrun the lorry now bearing down on them... O.o

80mph please

@@PointNemo9 I can't see 80mph ever being introduced. Lorries are restricted to 60 (most limited to less) so if one pulled out in front of a car doing 80, that is a closing speed of 20mph, which is too great. Motorways are now too congested to raise limits.

@@TheRip72 I'm not in favour of either increasing or decreasing the speed limit on our motorways. However,your comment begs the question "why would a HGV pull out on any approaching vehicle" ? Regardless of any speed issues the HGV driver would be at fault for impeding the motorist.

@@TheRip72 Raising limits would help to ease congestion, journey times would be shorter. Also, drivers would know they need to be prepared for faster moving traffic

When we all have smart electric cars, all talking to each other via Bluetooth, we’ll have car trains doing 150 mph with 3cm gaps between them… it’s humans that are the problem…

Agreed! This for me stops motorist sticking to the limits when it is required.

@@ashley_neal I had it yesterday day on the M62 where the limit was 50, changed to 40 for next to no reason just as i went under it. There was a camera on the gantry too. Be interesting too see what happens

@@steve6173 I've always thought about this - surely there has to be a grace period after a change to allow cars already at/under the gantry through as it would be dangerous, if not impossible, for them to react at that point.

The reason they do this is to stop jams forming. When one car brakes (say if a lorry overtakes a lorry) , typically the car behind it brakes harder and so on. This causes a wave of braking to travel backwards down the motorway. Eventually this will cause a traffic jam to form with no real cause other than drivers behind driving into the area too quickly. The highways agency use radar to detect areas where this is likely to happen and slow down the traffic behind to try and prevent it. If you don't meet any traffic in the area it is doing it's job correctly.

@@adamspencer95 Yes there is a lag between the speed limit change and cameras recording for an offence. I have run through several just as they changed with no consequence.

I totally agree. This electrical issue is the first situation that popped into my head. I've only had this happen to me once, in 35 years on the road, when all electrics fail (signals, speedometer, lights) but it was damn scary (even with power to the engine and in daylight) to pull across a live lane, from lane two, to the old hard shoulder, without any way to signal (other than hand). Fortunately, I had a red triangle to deploy, as the next best option and glad of the hard shoulder. Had it been night on a 'smart' motorway, no chance!

Military drivers are all taught to leave motorways when fog happens.

Wow you are lucky. M25 is a nightmare, if it's not traffic due to usage, its people slowing down to look at the aftermath of an accident, even on the other side!

National Highways produces Post Opening Project Evaluation (POPE) reports 12 months and 5 years after reopening if you’re interested. There is currently a trial ongoing in Northamptonshire with regards to a tailgating camera technology. You can see it between junction 16 and 15a on the southbound. So that could be interesting…

The Highways Agency trumpeted statistics for the M62 section about how much time people save over weeks and months. It worked out at three minutes per journey at peak times, so inconsequential weighed against the years of delays whilst they're created and the additional risks they create such as live lane breakdowns.

I remember all the roadworks on the Surrey stretch of the M25 for road widening. Was horrendous. When the extra lanes opened, it was bliss, no more stationary traffic for miles on end. Did not take long for it to return to it's former self, just more lanes of stationary traffic.

Couldn’t agree more and everything you said is absolutely true.

I believe "induced demand" is a vessel of fertilizer dreamed up by people who wish all cars would go away. my evidence of this is that my city has not increased capacity on the highway running through town and it has still turned into a carpark. the fact of the matter is that as population density increases, demand increases, whether capacity is increased or not. the real question that should be asked is whether to add capacity in a smart manner, or haphazardly with no eye towards efficient movement of people.

@@kenbrown2808 I sympathise with your perspective and agree that capacity should be added in a positive way. However, cars are not smart in most situations. The physical space a car takes up is super inefficient at transporting people compared to bikes or public transport, let alone the fuel inefficiency for pushing around literal tons of weight for usually one person (still not as effective with a full car). Cars will always exist but they should really be reserved for: areas lacking in sufficient alternate transport links (countryside), disabled people, emergency services or tradespeople. A vast majority or journeys are a few miles at the most and that is an easy walk, bike or public transport journey which doesnt contribute much to traffic while a short car trip is wildly inefficient. As someone who has driven cars, I understand their appeal and the desire to not let them go but if we want safer, faster and eco friendly cities then cars do have to start being phased out for investment in public transport and bike infrastructure. I would recommend the channel Not Just Bikes for further videos on the subject- very well researched and informative.

@@jamesgoodman5905 i actually find his videos to be a bit on the "everybody should be just like me" bias. I'm not sure he recognizes that tradesmen, delivery services and freight delivery are a thing. Plus, anybody who has a fixation on everything that isn't bike dominant being a stroad is also a bit biased. Fact of the matter is that high density transit only works above a certain population density, and i haven't really seen a good medium density transit concept, yet. Also, while it would be good if a couple miles a trip was an easy people powered commute, most of the us population would have to work up to that. But i agree that it's time for less dependence on cars. I just don't agree that the way to achieve it is to discriminate against people who don't have the option to not drive. Addendum: and in places with poor transit options, cars can be way more efficient in time and aggravation, because they can go directly.

The ‘unnecessary slow downs and speed limits changing’ is actually proof that they work. The changing speed limits it’s to reduce congestion by slowing down approaching traffic before it gets to the problem/queue. It stops the traffic just bunching up creating ever longer queues.

@@trainman665 lol, yeah right.

I wouldn’t believe a word that the AA publishes. Tout themselves as the “fifth emergency service” the leave people stranded on the roadside for 5+ hours on a regular basis.

@@bobhope4395 I’m against smart motorways, just pointing out what you describe is actually how they are meant to work. Unfortunately often they aren’t affective enough though.

Agreed👍

Try the M42 on the East Side of Birmingham, Ive been driving that section for nearly 30 years and the 'smart' motorway part has made it much much much worse. Today there were three changes of speed limit between two junctions. Surely a sensible protocol would be that if ANY section of a managed motorway has a speed reduction in place then ALL of that section should be running at the reduced speed. Think of traffic as a river. Having traffic at 70mph heading towards a 40 limit is certain to cause a problem. And why, with the available technology, aren't gantry cameras taking photos of every single car that continues in a red X closed lane?

@@magikjoe3789 Always tells you to slow down to join the M40, why? Joining traffic as well has it's own lane.

Would be better to "intraduce" varible speed limits for the lane : fifty for lane one , 60 for lane two ,seventy for lane three?

I completely agree! I wouldn't feel too comfortable using the hard shoulder because as you said the system currently can't be trusted and there have unfortunately been enough examples in the news to prove this. Smart Motorways just feel like a lazier and cheaper alternative to actually adding more lanes to motorways, instead they just recycle the layby, which is supposed to be for emergencies only.

1, the shoulders are far more free of debris when used as running lanes. I drive on shoulders as running lanes an awful lot, and have never had a problem with debris, never picked up a puncture etc. 3, You should have so much information coming at you constantly when driving on the motorway, that such signs are a fraction of a single percent of the information you are processing. The core skills such as keep left, keep your distance should be near instinctive, require very little processing power overall. 4, Is no different from any other road, any other sign, even that mini-roundabout at the bottom of the street.

@@stevesmith7530 I agree with you on all points. Number 1 - I'm in the wrong, and its something to get used to. Number 3 is more interesting. It's not the signs themselves, but the response to them from drivers, and they can create abnormal traffic situations on motorways which rely on consistency. Again, its just something to get used to, but its hard for that to happen in our current state where we have some sections, of some motorways, converted to smart running, and the rest of the network is still analogue.

I had an opportunity to meet UK drivers on autobahn. Middle lane hogging and pulling in front of me doing 140mph was standard.

It's one thing to follow the indications, and it's quite another to assume that they are correct, and true and they know best. I have rarely seen speed restrictions on a smart motorway that actually did more good than bad. All I see every single time I'm on one is massive congestion, followed by a 50 limit, then the no restrictions, and then the congestion slowly evaporates. This to me indicates that the speed limits are what cause congestion, not the other way around. I think this is done because they see some drivers moving at +80mph, and are creating walls of traffic to slow them down.

@@CristiNeagu You have it backwards, there is congestion, so the speed limit signs come on to slow traffic behind, which stops rear end collisions and with the slower speed, allows the traffic to bunch up more, increasing the capacity of the road, when congestion ends, the speed is set back to national speed limit, but alas drivers do not understand and think it was the speed reduction itself that caused the congestion.

@@wibbley1 Except that: 1. The speed limit itself increases the risk of rear end collisions as there is a lot of slow moving traffic on the outer lanes anyways. 2. A lot of the times there is no reason for there to be congestion, and by that I mean no stopped cars, no entry or exit ramps, no anything. 3. Traffic bunching up more increases the risk of collisions. From my personal experience (anecdotal, I know), it is very rare that there is a restriction for a safety related reason, and most of the time the speed restrictions are there for the express purpose of slowing traffic down.

His suggestion that driving 10mph 50% above the speed limit is reasonable is poor and reckless advice for an ADI to give.

@@nathanbloke I don't recall Ashley ever suggesting that. What's your reference?

Yeah I’ve noticed this a lot as well, it’s very annoying

A14 is a similar system now through Cambridge

Totally agree that's why I dont pay any attention to them its absolute shambles out there at the minute

Tbh yes, much much cheaper

They're taking long enough getting it done! Though I don't use it a lot, it's a bloody pain when I do. Can't imagine how I'd get on using it every day.

They hard shoulder has already been removed; the refuge areas are not yet available; the overhead signalling has not yet been installed. Smart? Most definitely not!

Just seen the signs for Southampton M3 junction up to Winchester Winnall Roundabout starting in Spring 2022 get put up along side average speed cameras (Currently not in use), went on for 9 miles-ish.

I refuse to use the M27 now. There's always another way round. 'Smart' motorways are an accident waiting to happen.

They actually dropped the word 'smart' from the signs and its been delayed another 6 months for 'stopped vehicle detection' technology. Apparently in a couple years they are going to rip up the metal barrier between J5-7 when they get rid of the concrete. So yet more delays in that area for a while!

And now you have the new section from J15 to J14. I had to travel down the M6 when My daughter was at Uni in Stoke. It was a continous horror story. For an almost flat and straight motorway people just seems to like driving into each other. The problem now is that the emergency services no longer has a hard shoulder to travel along and are just faced with four lanes of standing traffic to crawl through. Another great leap backwards.

I mainly use the M3/M25 where all the lanes live unless closed, when I have driven on the M1 with the hard shoulder I find it confusing. Only use hard shoulder when the says so? Use hard shoulder anytime, apart from when there is no red X?

@@ap9970 on the M1 it’s hard shoulder. Not in use. But then there are sections that a sign reads end of hard shoulder. The solid separation line becomes a standard dashed lane marking and there is no longer a shoulder at all. Whilst being used as a smart motorway, the hard shoulder can be opened as a live lane also. I am referring to my usual route of between J10-J13. Both directions are similar in how they are marked out.

I assume this was far from the refuge area then?

@@sharp14x You’d think. The nearest one was actually about half a mile down the road, I did speak to the driver of the stationary vehicle after and he claims he lost all power and was unable to accelerate. He did also say that the drivers in the left lane would not open a gap for him to move into, with all the smooth brain gap closers in this country, I do sympathise tbh.

M25 is the worst . 40 mile car park … what’s the point of these motorways and national speed limit if we are stuck doing 40 miles/hr … is it even reasonable . 60 is more reasonable

Had a similar incident on the M25 . Its dangerous . Unfortunately there is no win for us . If we drive at the speed limit with sudden change such as 20-30-40 mile we are at the risk of being rear ended and if we are above these speed limit even by a small amount then a risk of points . Utter crap these are

Gotta keep the cash flow going

Too many mps with snouts in the trough.

Well look how crowded the roads are vs the cycle lanes…

Because unless you`re going to work on your own it is usually much more convenient to go by car, and usually cheaper as well. Take London, zone 6 to 1 return trip is around 13 quid per adult, even ULEZ is cheaper and you can usually park for free on Sundays.

The lack of spending on cycle infrastructure I'd agree with, but things like Crossrail and HS2 show we spend a lot on public transport. The issue would be that the focus is mostly on London (or links to London), but that's largely a consequence of population density.

It’s displayed in both directions for a few reasons, one of which is incase the driver of the oncoming vehicle sees the sign and it clicks in his mind, he’s going the wrong way!

After a near miss from a knobber pulling out of a refuse right in front of me, I never use the old hard shoulder on smart motorways. Numerous people undertake me, but let them ram into somebody broken down on the inside lane, it won't be me. I keep above 56mph so as not to be an issue to lorries. As ones brain is used to the cars in front moving, it takes a little time for the brain to realise the car in front is getting bigger very quickly! The cause of multi-vehicle stacks on motorways. I have experienced this myself and had to brake much harder than I would like to on a motorway. It all happens very quickly.

Live lane breakdowns and other obstructions aren’t limited to lane 1… or smart motorways and conventional motorways either.

@@wibbley1 hard shoulder should have a Red X if someone is in the refuse area, so they can safely pull out onto the hard shoulder to build up speed to join motorway safely. Personally I feel the hard shoulder on a smart motorway should have a speed restriction on it for safety reasons.

@@justin.trading Indeed it should, however in reality, it does not. I had one near miss on the M23 in the summer and one only last week on the same road, when I broke my rule never to use the hard shoulder and yep, a box van pulled out from the refuge area into the live running hard shoulder right in front of me. So for me anyway, I will return to never using the hard shoulder and continue to potter along in the first real lane doing 56 to 60mph.

I wouldn't be surprised if, for the "smart" motorways that have a hard shoulder that sometimes is open, that people keep out of it for similar reasons to the "bus-lane phobia" that's often seen, that they don't want to run the risk of getting caught in there, even if signs show it's open (and even more so if it changes part way through).

Even for a car coming the wrong way down the carriageway?

For anything other than an oncoming vehicle travelling against the flow of traffic, I'd be inclined to agree. If someone has, for whatever reason, managed to end up travelling the wrong way down a dual carriageway then the impact velocity is the sum of the velocities of both items involved in the collision. So if they were travelling at 70MPH and you were travelling at 70MPH the impact velocity is 140MPH and everyone dies. If the oncoming vehicle was travelling at 70, then even only doing 20, the impact speed is 90. The signs are the only way to even attempt to control the impact speed, as the vehicle going the wrong way can't see them. Every driver in that clip who was going faster than the posted limit was increasing the risk of an accident, and increasing the damage caused by that accident. It's thankfully a rare occurrence on our roads, and I can understand the frustration of being told to drive that slow on what should be our fastest roads, but to arrive first, first you have to arrive!

@@garywhitfield317 ok, mayby for a car going the wrong way I'd agree, but not for 20mph, 40 would be plenty slow enough unless the wrong way car is doing 100, in which case you're in bad luck even stationary. As for the velocities summing-up, that's not how physics work, technically the impact velocity is a sum, but that doesn't matter in practice, for both parties involved it just "feels" like hitting a stationary object.

@@piciu256 Sorry, that's EXACTLY how physics work. There is the same impact energy involved in a head-on collision where both vehicles are travelling toward each other at 70MPH as there is with one hitting a brick wall at 140MPH. Physics has no bearing on what that 'feels' like, but I can assure you, you have a better chance of a) avoiding the collision in the first place and b) surviving any collision by driving as slow as is safe to do so. The cammer in this clip, I believe, has the correct attitude. You have no way of telling how fast, or in what lane, the oncoming vehicle is travelling. Slow down, keep alert. He slowed down to a reasonable speed, and kept alert - not just to what may have been coming straight towards him, but to the danger posed by traffic approaching from the rear.

@@garywhitfield317 energy involved is "the same", but the crumple zone is double also, so the acceleration (deceleration) is the same, also, energy is velocity squared, so no, the energy is not the same as double the speed, the energy is double.

Congratulations 👏

@@ashley_neal Thank you! I managed to do it first try, I turned up with 2 other people and both of them returned early. 😬 One tip that might be useful to let people know about is reminding the examiner that you don't have an extra mirror, I have heard some examiners can be a bit different if they have to get back out of the car.

Why take the risk? Because the more people think like that the more dangerous they become.

It would help congestion if everyone didn't have your mindset, plenty of people have exactly the same mindset as you. Its gotten that bad on the M6 that when the "use hardshoulder" is on the gantries I make the joke to myself "my personal lane has opened", as nobody ever seems to use it. All it does is cause just as many problems as "middle lane hoggers". As an example, if the hardshoulder has been marked as "use hardshoulder" on the gantries and i switch to the hardshoulder (now lane 1) as im not over taking anyone, ill likely approach loads of vehicles travelling slower than me in the now lane 2. This gives me the choice of either passing on the left or moving out to lane 3 to pass slower vehicles in lane 2 and then move back to lane 1 (hard shoulder). Doing either of those is just as problematic as the other. You need to change your mindset and use these motorways correctly.

@@ProMilkshake exactly, not using the hard shoulder when allowed "because it's not as safe probably" is the same mindset as mod lane hoggers use "it's safer to just stay in this lane than having to change lanes once in a while"

Absolutely right, David. I do the same.

@@AndYourPointWasWhat you should be more confident in your ability to see problems ahead of maybe get some more training. There's no reason you should be frightened to use the left lane.

Ignore Ashley's advice on this, it's duff. Don't exceed the speed limit. Claiming to be worried about "faster cars coming up behind" is just an excuse.

@@nathanbloke you wouldn’t say that when someone smashed into the rear of you

I'm extremely proud of my comment section, as it's always full of good and extra information.👍🏼

@@ashley_neal And so you should be Ash. You have honestly created quite something here. May it continue to grow.