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A303Chris wrote:...HGV drivers did not like the one lane approach through the junction and being dumped in lane 3, and as they will now be dumped in lane 4, with 2 lanes to get across to be legally driving, I wonder if the safety audit has said this is too dangerous...
HGVs are allowed in lane 3 of 4 lane motorway aren't they? So it's no worse a position than before.
No vehicles over 7.5 tonnes, including coaches having more than 8 seats are allowed to use lanes 3 or more of a 3 lane plus motorway. Details here
Bendo wrote:Is anyone surprised? There is nothing SMART about these roads, it relys on someone spotting something on one of the CCTV cameras and god knows how many cameras one person is tasked with watching. If someone was able to stop, fetch their warning triangle and errect it 100 yards back, it suggests they had been stopped a good few minutes and still nothing on the signs is very worrying.
That's where you're wrong. It relies on traffic sensors, actually. There's everything smart about them.
Might help if people stopped perpetuating the fallacy that it relies on somebody watching on CCTV, because it doesn't.
Might help if it actually worked then as based on the above post it clearly doesn't!
A303Chris wrote:...HGV drivers did not like the one lane approach through the junction and being dumped in lane 3, and as they will now be dumped in lane 4, with 2 lanes to get across to be legally driving, I wonder if the safety audit has said this is too dangerous...
HGVs are allowed in lane 3 of 4 lane motorway aren't they? So it's no worse a position than before.
No vehicles over 7.5 tonnes, including coaches having more than 8 seats are allowed to use lanes 3 or more of a 3 lane plus motorway. Details here
Incorrect I'm afraid. On your link it clearly states outside lane, not lane 3 or more.
A HGV can use lanes 1 2 and 3 of a 4 lane motorway
Rule 265
The right-hand lane of a motorway with three or more lanes MUST NOT be used (except in prescribed circumstances) if you are driving
any vehicle drawing a trailer
a goods vehicle with a maximum laden weight exceeding 3.5 tonnes but not exceeding 7.5 tonnes, which is required to be fitted with a speed limiter
a goods vehicle with a maximum laden weight exceeding 7.5 tonnes
a passenger vehicle with a maximum laden weight exceeding 7.5 tonnes constructed or adapted to carry more than eight seated passengers in addition to the driver
a passenger vehicle with a maximum laden weight not exceeding 7.5 tonnes which is constructed or adapted to carry more than eight seated passengers in addition to the driver, which is required to be fitted with a speed limiter.
Laws MT(E&W)R reg 12, MT(E&W)(A)R, MT(S)R reg 11 & MT(S)(A)R
It's outside lane only, so on roads like the M25 in Surrey you can have 4 HGVs alongside.
Bryn Terminally cynical, unimpressed, and nearly Middle Age already. She said life was like a motorway; dull, grey, and long.
At the beginning of the M25(S) to M3(S) link road, there is a single sign saying 50 mph. There is also signs warning of average speed check. This limit is not repeated at any point after the initial sign and at 11:30 on a Saturday night, the message signs were off. Then there are big NSL signs on the M3 mainline a little bit further down.
Is this small section being enforced as a 50mph limit?
If so, I might be in trouble. Depends on the margin. There's a not insignificant chance I averaged within the 10%+2. It's confusing because there was nothing after to the first sign to confirm 50.
Glom wrote:At the beginning of the M25(S) to M3(S) link road, there is a single sign saying 50 mph. There is also signs warning of average speed check. This limit is not repeated at any point after the initial sign and at 11:30 on a Saturday night, the message signs were off. Then there are big NSL signs on the M3 mainline a little bit further down.
Is this small section being enforced as a 50mph limit?
If so, I might be in trouble. Depends on the margin. There's a not insignificant chance I averaged within the 10%+2. It's confusing because there was nothing after to the first sign to confirm 50.
Yes its the same as before the works, the slips and 1/2 a mile after them are 50 mph
Glom wrote:At the beginning of the M25(S) to M3(S) link road, there is a single sign saying 50 mph. There is also signs warning of average speed check. This limit is not repeated at any point after the initial sign and at 11:30 on a Saturday night, the message signs were off. Then there are big NSL signs on the M3 mainline a little bit further down.
Is this small section being enforced as a 50mph limit?
If so, I might be in trouble. Depends on the margin. There's a not insignificant chance I averaged within the 10%+2. It's confusing because there was nothing after to the first sign to confirm 50.
Yes its the same as before the works, the slips and 1/2 a mile after them are 50 mph
That's not good news.
What's the point of it anyway? And why isn't it better signed?
I guess it's because of the unusual single through lane configuration which would lead to heavy vehicles trying to change lanes.
That makes sense when you know the details, but it should be signed better.
I'm really upset at the prospect of getting done again despite being well behaved 99% of the time and only getting caught out because of an unusual road layout, not any maliciousness. Meanwhile, serial offenders get away with it. I'm moving from denial to anger. Bargaining will come up soon.
Last time I fell afoul of Surrey Police, clocked at 60 in a 50, they offered a speed awareness course. That was some years ago though. I did enjoy the speee awareness course. I bet we talk more about smart motorways now.
I'm more confident that the average speed recorded won't be above 60.
But really, does anyone contradict my stance that there are no repeaters on the mainline?
What's the point of it anyway? And why isn't it better signed?
Its because southbound out of London is only one lane and therefore HGV's who can not travel at 70 mph end up in the outside lane as the M25 merges and therefore to allow them to move over safely the speed limit was reduced
Well it's now two weeks on and no word, so that's very promising though I'd want another week to go by to be sure.
I did that stretch again today, in daylight, limit firmly observed. I can confirm that there are no repeaters on mainline. After the initial 50 sign on the slip, there is one repeater a bit further on the slip, but that's it.
I would question the legality of enforcing this limit without repeaters, especially given that the reason for it is not something obvious to non road geeks.
A303Chris wrote:I've just sent the following email to the HE regarding J2 and an incident with a broken down vehicle yesterday and no warnings. I will post a reply when I receive one
"I wonder if you can advise me on when the M3 smart motorway works will be completed southbound at junction 2, as even though the website say they are completed this is definitely not the case at this junction. In fact the approaches to the slip road from the M25 in both directions still state “M3 Smart Motorway Roadworks Ahead”. The surfacing is not completed, cones still in place and the road markings are with temporary cats eyes. This is 3 months are the works were meant to be finished.
The second area is monitoring of the Smart Motorway. Late yesterday afternoon at approximately 5.20pm I was travelling southbound between junction 2 and junction 3, halfway between the two junctions I was confronted with a stationery vehicle half on the verge and half within lane 1, which had broken down. Fortunately the driver has managed to erect a warning triangle on the edge of lane one approximately one hundred yards before his vehicle.
This is concerning as one of the safety measures promoted with smart motorways is that if a vehicle is in difficultly and cannot make an emergency layby , then the variable message signs will inform drivers of a lane closure and reduce speeds. This was not the case yesterday as there was no warning and vehicles had to move out of the lane one as they approach the stationery vehicle.
This is concerning as the motorway is supposed to be monitored by CCTV, so I am surprised an operative did not see a vehicle stop half in lane one, the driver get out, walk 100 yards to place a warning triangle and walk back again thereby ensuring warning signs were switched on. It was fortunate there was no accident yesterday.
I look forward to your reply"
I have now had a reply to my email over 2 months later, which is below. What is really annoying is it is totally generic and does not answer the question. It also mentions about the Woodlands Bridge which was not even in my query and what red X's over lanes mean. I find it worrying the distain the HE have had for my original email which raised a serious safety matter.
Thank you for contacting Highways England Customer Contact Centre. Firstly, please accept my sincere apologies in not being able to provide you with a response sooner.
Woodlands Lane Bridge was built in 1971; it weighed around 2,500 tonnes and stretched some 88 metres over the M3 motorway between junctions 2 and 3 near Windlesham. The bridge significantly deteriorated over the years, leading to a weight and width restriction being imposed upon it. In March 2016, work began to demolish and re-construct it.
We are now pleased to inform you that the new Woodlands Lane Bridge will be opening on 22 December 2017. Minor work may take place after this date, but we do not anticipate this work to have any significant impact on the operation of the bridge.
Operating without a hard shoulder is not unique to Highways England’s road network. There are sections of conventional motorway without a hard shoulder, as well as over 1,500 miles of dual 2 and 3 lane All Purpose Trunk Roads (APTR) – major ‘A’ roads – which operate at the national speed limit of 70mph without the benefits of the controlled environment of a smart motorway or the operational response of the Traffic Officer Service.
Smart motorways are among the safest in the world, and cutting the number of accidents is Highways England’s top priority. All Lane Running roads are designed to be as safe as ordinary motorways.
Highways England are committed to improving safety on their network, and everything they design and operate has safety in mind. The smart motorway all lane running schemes are designed to maintain or improve safety. The evidence from the first two all-lanes running schemes on the M25 indicate that the current high level of safety performance on motorways is being maintained, with reductions in collision and casualty rates. All-lane running schemes achieve this more quickly and efficiently than previous approaches, where drivers have also benefitted from improved journey times and fewer unexpected delays. Highways England are confident in the performance of all-lane running based on the increasing amount of evidence available, however without being complacent. Highways England are monitoring the new schemes including the M1 (J28-31 and J39-42) and M6 (J10a-13), and continue to closely monitor the M25 sections.
In the event of a breakdown, it is advised that, if possible the driver leaves the motorway at the next junction, motorway service area or other place of relative safety. However in some cases, a vehicle may not be able to leave the motorway before needing to stop. In these circumstances, emergency refuge areas are provided at frequent intervals, an average distance between emergency refuge area’s or a point of motorway exit is circa 2.5km, on smart motorway sections and motorists are advised to stop in one of these in case of an emergency (e.g. a critical vehicle fault), to use the SOS telephone provided if they need assistance.
In situations where a driver cannot reach an emergency refuge area, it is advised that they should pull onto the verge or stop in the left-hand lane, put their hazard warning lights on and where possible leave the vehicle by the left-hand (near side) door and wait on the verge. This is the existing advice given in the Highway Code for sections of road without a hard shoulder. Where it is not possible to leave your vehicle, it is advised to stay in the vehicle with your seat belt/s fastened and hazard warning lights on. In either case you are required to contact the police or Highways England to make them aware of your situation. Once the Regional Control Centre is notified operators will pinpoint your exact location and set appropriate signs and signals to protect both the broken down and the oncoming vehicles.
Smart motorways also have a minimum of 100 % CCTV coverage compared to other sections of motorway. This provides the Regional Control Centre with much more control to be able to identify, locate and manage incidents in a safely and timely manner. Highways England are committed to further improving the smart motorway concept and have recently developed a system to improve the detection of stationary and slow-moving vehicles, which will be installed on current and future all-lane running schemes. This technology has been tested on the M25 between junctions 5 and 6 and the test was successful, in that stationary vehicles can be detected and alert the Control Centre operators much quicker.
There are no plans to increase the number of emergency refuge areas or to introduce a hard shoulder. The evidence to date supports the use of all-lane running, which allows us to improve performance across far more of the motorway network than would be possible with either conventional widening or part-time use of the hard shoulder. Driver behaviour continues to play a large part in the success of smart motorways and Highways England have been carrying out educational campaigns, to help inform drivers about how to drive on smart motorways and what to do in the event of a breakdown. Explain key safety features such as red X signals and emergency refuge areas. More information regarding this can be found at the following link: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/how-to-driv ... t-motorway.
I hope this goes some way in answering your query. However If you would like any further information regarding the scheme, please contact me via this email address: M3 Junction 2 to 4a Smart Motorways M3Junction2to4aSmartMotorways@highwaysengland.co.uk.
Kind Regards
{name removed by me} Team Executive
Highways England | The Cube | 199 Wharfside Street | Birmingham | B1 1RN
1) Your original email got missed and has only been picked up now as part of an end-of-year sweep to close out as many logs as possible, hence the generic reply that looks like it has been written for someone else's FOI or enquiry.
2) They have spent two months trying to work out what went wrong and couldn't come up with an answer.
I'll admit I don't pay massive attention to FOI/public contact forms as usually they're along the lines of "I got caught doing 58mph with variable 50mph showing, please prove why 50mph was being displayed" etc but your contact is obviously different and the HE should be collating and investigating each report of this nature as part of efforts to improve the service.
It's the same in any industry, if you get repeat valid complaints about a particular issue (especially when such as yours it's safety-critical) someone should be looking at the trends and picking up patterns, determine causes, and try to resolve. Maybe that's the line your reply should take!
I assume this new tech they're mentioning on M25 J5 to 6 is radar-based stationary vehicle detection? AIUI the CCTV systems already have some method to detect a static vehicle and alert a human.
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1) Your original email got missed and has only been picked up now as part of an end-of-year sweep to close out as many logs as possible, hence the generic reply that looks like it has been written for someone else's FOI or enquiry.
2) They have spent two months trying to work out what went wrong and couldn't come up with an answer.
I'll admit I don't pay massive attention to FOI/public contact forms as usually they're along the lines of "I got caught doing 58mph with variable 50mph showing, please prove why 50mph was being displayed" etc but your contact is obviously different and the HE should be collating and investigating each report of this nature as part of efforts to improve the service.
It's the same in any industry, if you get repeat valid complaints about a particular issue (especially when such as yours it's safety-critical) someone should be looking at the trends and picking up patterns, determine causes, and try to resolve. Maybe that's the line your reply should take!
I assume this new tech they're mentioning on M25 J5 to 6 is radar-based stationary vehicle detection? AIUI the CCTV systems already have some method to detect a static vehicle and alert a human.
It might be worthwhile writing to your MP about this. Given the government's precarious position, especially if your MP has a marginal seat, they might actually do something.
I always follow VSL. But they do need to be displayed. The roadworks the other night had one sign before the cones and then sign after sign of darkness. You can't enforce without repeating.
Thought I bump this thread, following this FOI request regarding signal failures on this scheme since opening.
There seems to have been over 2,500 faults of the signals the majority with red x's not working, however from the excel file i'm finding it hard to work out the length of time of the fault as it's a digital time. So time to fix a fault of 0.75, does that represent 45 minutes.
However, red x's not working is not great on roads without hard shoulders
There have been 2698 faults to date of which 9 remain open since 25 July 2019. The 9 signs faults that remain open are awaiting availability of our Traffic Officers to provide a rolling road block and we do not anticipate them being repaired until October 2019 at the earliest.
Given the "official" opening was 1st August 2017, that is an unbelievable number of faults - in excess of three per day! Although I note that 920-odd of them are the same Equipment ID (M3/1351B1)
i'm finding it hard to work out the length of time of the fault as it's a digital time. So time to fix a fault of 0.75, does that represent 45 minutes.
Looking at some of the long-standing faults (eg Row 36), I think it is in DAYS
