Variable speed limits don't necessarily make a road safer. Concrete barriers may improve safety ever so slightly, their main benefit is lower ongoing maintenance but a wagon will still go through them.Patrick Harper wrote: ↑Tue Oct 20, 2020 12:13Smart 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.JammyDodge wrote: ↑Tue Oct 20, 2020 09:04 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.
No hard shoulder and an average of 11 mins to close a lane however speaks for itself. It simply shouldn't have been signed off without SVD in place. Likewise it shouldn't have taken 5 plus years to type approve HADECS cameras for red x offences, that should have been there from day one to increase compliance.