Smart Motorway court case

[WHBM]

Court case on Smart Motorway fatal collision completed yesterday.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-s ... e-54606261

It's a bit difficult reconciling "Judge Jeremy Richardson QC said: "Had there been a hard shoulder ... this catastrophe would never have occurred" with the jail term for the truck driver. Something that the wife of one of the victims seems to forcibly agree with : she said: "An agenda genuinely concerned with avoiding future deaths is not served by a pretend review... that wouldn't have saved any of 40-plus people killed by smart motorways, or by jailing the wrong person".

[c2R]

It's somewhat difficult to weigh up the evidence to come to ones own decision from the BBC report as to whether or not a sentence is justified in this case... there aren't really enough facts available.

[JammyDodge]

There is part of me which says that HE probably should have been done for corporate manslaughter alongside the lorry driver getting a jail term.

While I don't mind smart motorways overall, they have too many problems to be truly as safe as conventional motorways.

[jackal]

By the same logic HE should be put in jail every time someone dies on a non-smart motorway. After all, they know smart motorways to be safer, yet wilfully didn't provide one, and someone died as a result.

Or maybe we should be a bit more grown up about it and recognize that punishing public officials earnestly working to improve safety can only increase risks to future drivers.

[JammyDodge]

By the same logic HE should be put in jail every time someone dies on a non-smart motorway. After all, they know smart motorways to be safer, yet wilfully didn't provide one, and someone died as a result.

Or maybe we should be a bit more grown up about it and recognize that punishing public officials earnestly working to improve safety can only increase risks to future drivers.

Corporate Manslaughter doesn't need someone to go to jail. The organisation can be fined an unlimited amount and forced to change practices

[KeithW]

The most thar could be said is that

"Had there been a hard shoulder ... this catastrophe MAY never have occurred'

The reality is the hard shoulder is a dangerous place with around 100 RTC's on them every year even before the large scale introduction of smart motorways. Extend that to all roads and its about 25 per week

[KeithW]

By the same logic HE should be put in jail every time someone dies on a non-smart motorway. After all, they know smart motorways to be safer, yet wilfully didn't provide one, and someone died as a result.

Or maybe we should be a bit more grown up about it and recognize that punishing public officials earnestly working to improve safety can only increase risks to future drivers.

Corporate Manslaughter doesn't need someone to go to jail. The organisation can be fined an unlimited amount and forced to change practices

To who's benefit would it be to reduce the capacity of the M1 and M6 by 25% ?

If nothing else that would push more traffic onto ordinary roads such as the A1, A5, A50 and A41 where there are no hard shoulders, refuges, traffic monitoring etc and which are already more dangerous that ANY motorway.

[trickstat]

The most thar could be said is that

"Had there been a hard shoulder ... this catastrophe MAY never have occurred'

The reality is the hard shoulder is a dangerous place with around 100 RTC's on them every year even before the large scale introduction of smart motorways. Extend that to all roads and its about 25 per week

I would say the main advantage of a hard shoulder is that it does give occupants a safer opportunity to get out of their vehicle. However, not everybody takes it.

[jervi]

I think that all roads including motorways should be limited to 20mph, that way there will be very little fatalities on all roads.

(Although this is a joke, it is more plausible than their baseless court case)

[WHBM]

I understand the law is still that, in the event of a collision, you must stop and exchange details. That is what was going on here when the two involved were struck by the HGV. The judge said that they might also have continued to the next ERA, but that seems to be actually against the law to stop, particularly if one vehicle has been disabled in the collision and the other goes forward to the ERA, so you end up out of contact. The procedure doesn't seem to have been updated. You also have to be a bit of a Sabristi to even know about ERA placing.

A lot of the hard shoulder removal was justified by "cars are more reliable now", as if mechanical breakdowns were the only reason one might stop there. But I bet that's a minority compared to collisions, children in the back throwing up and choking, running out of fuel, etc, none of which are in any way impacted by cars being more reliable now. It's also apparent that if the road capacity is increased by 25% then you would typically have a 25% increase in vehicles stopped for these reasons. Not less.

[c2R]

My understanding while the law says you must stop to exchange details,is that it is permissible to report oneself to a police station within 24 hours if you are involved in an accident and feel unsafe in stopping. If I was involved in a shunt on a motorway with no hard shoulder and could drive off I definitely would do so, rather than hanging around in lane 1...

[roadtester]

The more I think about it, the more I wonder whether we need some degree of smartification on D4Ms to deal with stranded vehicles even if a hard shoulder is present.

It's an awful long way in a failing vehicle on a busy motorway from lane 4 across to the (relative) safety of the hard shoulder.

[Bendo]

The sad thing is, these are entirely pointless deaths, neither vehicle had broken down and neither couldn't have been driven to an ERA to exchange details. I don't agree with ALR without SVD, it clearly presents a much higher risk and that is obvious to anyone based on HE's own KPI response time.

I just wonder what goes through the mind of people when they stop in an active lane when they have no reason to. It makes no sense whatsoever.

I understand the law is still that, in the event of a collision, you must stop and exchange details. That is what was going on here when the two involved were struck by the HGV. The judge said that they might also have continued to the next ERA, but that seems to be actually against the law to stop, particularly if one vehicle has been disabled in the collision and the other goes forward to the ERA, so you end up out of contact.

But in that situation, you should simply drive on to the next ERA and use the emergency phone to get the lane closed and they would advise you on what to do and take your details etc.

[Ruperts Trooper]

The more I think about it, the more I wonder whether we need some degree of smartification on D4Ms to deal with stranded vehicles even if a hard shoulder is present.

It's an awful long way in a failing vehicle on a busy motorway from lane 4 across to the (relative) safety of the hard shoulder.

I agree - it's stressful enough from lane 3, I realised the cambelt had gone almost instantly - there's no chance from lane 4 for a hesitant driver if total loss of power occurs.

[WHBM]

I wonder if one or both of the vehicles were actually undriveable in some way after their initial contact. Both were destroyed, and their drivers killed, in the ensuing collision.

[KeithW]

I understand the law is still that, in the event of a collision, you must stop and exchange details. That is what was going on here when the two involved were struck by the HGV. The judge said that they might also have continued to the next ERA, but that seems to be actually against the law to stop, particularly if one vehicle has been disabled in the collision and the other goes forward to the ERA, so you end up out of contact. The procedure doesn't seem to have been updated. You also have to be a bit of a Sabristi to even know about ERA placing.

A lot of the hard shoulder removal was justified by "cars are more reliable now", as if mechanical breakdowns were the only reason one might stop there. But I bet that's a minority compared to collisions, children in the back throwing up and choking, running out of fuel, etc, none of which are in any way impacted by cars being more reliable now. It's also apparent that if the road capacity is increased by 25% then you would typically have a 25% increase in vehicles stopped for these reasons. Not less.

Well running out of fuel is of course negligence and as I recall its not that many years since a driver who's car ran out of fuel on the motorway was jailed after the subsequent accident killed her passenger.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-e ... ry%20heard.

What the law says is this

Stop and remain at the scene for a reasonable time - if you do not do so, you could be committing an offence of failing to stop at the scene of an accident.
Give your name and address, vehicle registration number, and details of the owner (if different) to anyone with reasonable grounds for asking for these details.
If you do not exchange those details at the scene you must report the collision at a police station or to a police officer as soon as possible and, in any event, within 24 hours.

In such cases if the vehicles are driveable the reasonable approach is to drive to the next exit, refuge or MSA and exchange details there, if that fails contact the police. If this happened to me on the A1 I would not be standing next to my car in Lane 1, I would be be yelling 'follow me to the next junction'

As to the issue of reduced capacity the point is that more people would end up stuck here
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@52.75297 ... 312!8i6656

here
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@52.28787 ... 312!8i6656

or here
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@52.99096 ... 312!8i6656

Increased congestion and use of minor roads WILL increase fatalities, we know rural roads are by far the most dangerous. No CCTV , no HE patrols , no hard shoulders, often not even a walkable verge.

I cant say I am a great fan of smart motorways but then I have spent thousands of hours on roads such as the A1, A15, A34. A43, A50, A19, A9, A82 etc that dont have any shoulders or much in the way of smarts.

[jackal]

By the same logic HE should be put in jail every time someone dies on a non-smart motorway. After all, they know smart motorways to be safer, yet wilfully didn't provide one, and someone died as a result.

Or maybe we should be a bit more grown up about it and recognize that punishing public officials earnestly working to improve safety can only increase risks to future drivers.

Corporate Manslaughter doesn't need someone to go to jail. The organisation can be fined an unlimited amount and forced to change practices

The point still applies, i.e. that it would discourage effective safety interventions and permanently lock us into mid-20th century motorway design because any departure from that is 'manslaughter' (even if, as shown time and time again, smart motorways are actually safer than regular motorways).

[Micro The Maniac]

"An agenda genuinely concerned with avoiding future deaths is not served by a pretend review... that wouldn't have saved any of 40-plus people killed by smart motorways, or by jailing the wrong person".

Very emotive language "killed by"... yes they "died on" but....

[Patrick Harper]

There is part of me which says that HE probably should have been done for corporate manslaughter alongside the lorry driver getting a jail term.

While I don't mind smart motorways overall, they have too many problems to be truly as safe as conventional motorways.

Smart motorways are safer overall. The current crop (2013 onwards) of ALR projects have always included VSLs, concrete barriers, revamped signs and monitoring equipment...all of that stuff is welcome. The contentious part is the absence of hard shoulders.

[KeithW]

The more I think about it, the more I wonder whether we need some degree of smartification on D4Ms to deal with stranded vehicles even if a hard shoulder is present.

It's an awful long way in a failing vehicle on a busy motorway from lane 4 across to the (relative) safety of the hard shoulder.

I agree - it's stressful enough from lane 3, I realised the cambelt had gone almost instantly - there's no chance from lane 4 for a hesitant driver if total loss of power occurs.

Which is why HE have started rolling out Stopped Vehicle Detectors on the M25 and M62
https://navtechradar.com/stopped-vehicl ... -highways/
https://www.highwaysmagazine.co.uk/High ... %20traffic.