Red X means don’t drive in that lane

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Reading
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Re: Red X means don’t drive in that lane

Post by Reading »

As an aside to this thread I recently tuned into Eagle FM (Guildford) and they have a bunch of HE adverts on I guess due to the M3 smart motorway scheme and proximity to the M25, 1 is about a red x meaning lane is shut but another was saying "in the past if you had mechanical issue son the motorway the safest thing to do was to immediately move to the hard shoulder, now with the new improved all lane running (did not use these words), there are emergency refuges every 1.5 miles and you should try and make it to one of these to not cause delays to fellow travellers"

I am really not convinced at the wiseness of telling people to try and limp to the next refuge, especially as modern cars are so much better mechanically in my experience they tend to either work or die big time rather than limp on like older generations - one of the obvious issues of not wanting to carry on would be the vibrations from a starting to fail dual mass flywheel in a diesel, at motorway speeds if one starts to go you want to stop asap not up to 90s later as you look for a layby
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kit
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Re: Red X means don’t drive in that lane

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Reading wrote:I am really not convinced at the wiseness of telling people to try and limp to the next refuge, especially as modern cars are so much better mechanically in my experience they tend to either work or die big time rather than limp on like older generations - one of the obvious issues of not wanting to carry on would be the vibrations from a starting to fail dual mass flywheel in a diesel, at motorway speeds if one starts to go you want to stop asap not up to 90s later as you look for a layby
That may be the case but the time spent deciding to stop, and the momentum transferred from the road to the car if/when the engine dies hasn't changed in fifty years. A car will coast surprisingly far from 70mph.
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M4 Cardiff
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Re: Red X means don’t drive in that lane

Post by M4 Cardiff »

A few years ago when my works van (Astra) decided to blow its ECU board and leave me without power, I got it to roll just about 1km, from about 70ish, with the last part of the roll-out on a slight uphill.
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Re: Red X means don’t drive in that lane

Post by Ruperts Trooper »

M4 Cardiff wrote:A few years ago when my works van (Astra) decided to blow its ECU board and leave me without power, I got it to roll just about 1km, from about 70ish, with the last part of the roll-out on a slight uphill.
The gradient makes a big difference, particularly on heavier cars - the coasting feature on my VW seems to roll on for "ever".
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Reading
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Re: Red X means don’t drive in that lane

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M4 Cardiff wrote:A few years ago when my works van (Astra) decided to blow its ECU board and leave me without power, I got it to roll just about 1km, from about 70ish, with the last part of the roll-out on a slight uphill.
But were you coasting on the hard shoulder or in a live running lane as you slowed to 0 - in my opinion (I am sure others may disagree) the biggest dangers on motorways are caused by speed differentials - a car doing 30 or even 40 in a live lane can cause mayhem as other vehicles make sudden manoeuvres to avoid it as people seem to not be able to anticipate how fast they will close on it and make sudden lane changes etc - a car slowing towards 0 in a live lane is a recipe for someone getting an HGV in their rearend
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Re: Red X means don’t drive in that lane

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Reading wrote:But were you coasting on the hard shoulder or in a live running lane as you slowed to 0 - in my opinion (I am sure others may disagree) the biggest dangers on motorways are caused by speed differentials - a car doing 30 or even 40 in a live lane can cause mayhem as other vehicles make sudden manoeuvres to avoid it as people seem to not be able to anticipate how fast they will close on it and make sudden lane changes etc - a car slowing towards 0 in a live lane is a recipe for someone getting an HGV in their rearend
Undoubtedly true, but still less of a danger than stopping on a live lane.
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Re: Red X means don’t drive in that lane

Post by Reading »

I can only think either is ok IF as soon as a vehicle starts to slow significantly the red X's go up - this would have to rely on lots of very attentive camera operators and people hitting their hazards asap as well to alert the operators. It is also the reason I am not keen on the fact each new smart motorway scheme seems to have wider spacing of refuges (although that could be my perception rather than reality - if anyone with more of an overview would care to comment)
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Re: Red X means don’t drive in that lane

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Reading wrote:I can only think either is ok IF as soon as a vehicle starts to slow significantly the red X's go up - this would have to rely on lots of very attentive camera operators and people hitting their hazards asap as well to alert the operators.
Alas it seems they aren't as alert as they need to be - http://www.shropshirestar.com/news/2016 ... -shoulder/

Two minutes that guy was stopped for before being hit by a lorry traveling on the hard shoulder that was still open to traffic. Two minutes seems a very long time, if the tragic crash hadn't happened, just how long would he have been stranded there for before the lane was closed?

What is the SLA for a lane being closed in the event of a stranded vehicle? I certainly wouldn't fancy being sat there, unable to remove my son from his car seat due to the stupid decision to put armco barrier right up to the nearside lane as is done these days. The advice now seems to be to remain in the car, well this accident doesn't give much confidence in that advice,

The police and coroner findings will be interesting,
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Re: Red X means don’t drive in that lane

Post by Glen »

He stopped in a live running lane to check his trailer, I wouldn't even do that on a hard shoulder unless there was an immediate safety risk that couldn't be mitigated by driving at a lower speed to get to a safe place. He was outside the vehicle between the car and the trailer when the trailer was hit, that would be a dangerous position to be in on a hard shoulder.
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Re: Red X means don’t drive in that lane

Post by AndyB »

Quite - and if a stop in a live running lane were absolutely necessary rather than continuing to a refuge, I would be climbing the verge to call 999 - I don't think the police would object to that coming through 999 due to the objective danger to other road users.
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Re: Red X means don’t drive in that lane

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Yes it was a daft place to stop if the vehicle was not disabled, but the question is, why in 2 mins had the lane not been closed? How long does it take to detect a stranded vehicle and close the lane?

Climbing the verge is a good idea, however to do so you now have to exit the vehicle via the offside due to the barrier, if you have a child strapped into a seat, your options appear to be to remove the child via the offside door exposing yourself and the child to L2 or smash the rear window and attempt to extract the child through that.
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Re: Red X means don’t drive in that lane

Post by brummie_rob »

Bendo wrote:Yes it was a daft place to stop if the vehicle was not disabled, but the question is, why in 2 mins had the lane not been closed? How long does it take to detect a stranded vehicle and close the lane?

Climbing the verge is a good idea, however to do so you now have to exit the vehicle via the offside due to the barrier, if you have a child strapped into a seat, your options appear to be to remove the child via the offside door exposing yourself and the child to L2 or smash the rear window and attempt to extract the child through that.
You'll notice that when HE advertise jobs for the control centre they mention it is 'safety critical' and that applicants must live within 1 hours commute by car to the office. I was put off applying for one of these jobs on the basis of me being just within an hour and that I don't fancy something like this lingering over me if I hadn't checked a certain camera and not seen a vehicle straight away.
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Re: Red X means don’t drive in that lane

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Reading wrote:
M4 Cardiff wrote:A few years ago when my works van (Astra) decided to blow its ECU board and leave me without power, I got it to roll just about 1km, from about 70ish, with the last part of the roll-out on a slight uphill.
But were you coasting on the hard shoulder or in a live running lane as you slowed to 0 - in my opinion (I am sure others may disagree) the biggest dangers on motorways are caused by speed differentials - a car doing 30 or even 40 in a live lane can cause mayhem as other vehicles make sudden manoeuvres to avoid it as people seem to not be able to anticipate how fast they will close on it and make sudden lane changes etc - a car slowing towards 0 in a live lane is a recipe for someone getting an HGV in their rearend
Mamaged to get across onto the hard shoulder before the speed dropped below 40. I was in the outside lane when I lost power, so had to get across two lanes, whilst slowing. That was a bit scary!!
Driving thrombosis caused this accident......a clot behind the wheel.
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Re: Red X means don’t drive in that lane

Post by Barkstar »

I use the M62 regularly and after one incident felt compelled to complain to HE, to no avail. In filthy wet weather the overheads still showed 60, despite no one doing that because of the spray. The 'hardshoulder' was running due to the levels of traffic. I come off the eastbound at Jct 27 (A621M) and moved over into that lane after the M606, overheads showing clear and the 'use hardshoulder' sign on. Ahead an HGV did likewise but a minute or so later made a hard lane change - clearly something had caused it and I followed suit to pass a stranded van on the hardshoulder. Thing is the driver was already getting on with his tyre change, doors open, jack out, undoing wheel nuts. So he hadn't been there briefly. In the conditions it was quite worrying because we were all down to 40, a bit less traffic we may all have sped up just enough and ><.

I queried this with HE who claimed I was mistaken and he had been protected - I refute that. The one thing they did explain, which I didn't know, is the system is semi automatic. If the average speed of traffic slows it can automatically reduce the limits back up stream. Which goes some way to possibly explaining 40 limits at 9pm on a Sunday evening with little more than a handful of vehicles in sight!
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Re: Red X means don’t drive in that lane

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I would suggest semi automation is a BAD thing - all changes should be by human response to an alarm/light/flag etc, otherwise people become complacent and "leave it to the machine", hence the issues with Tesla self driving where nearly all accidents are due to drivers assuming the software could do something it wasn't designed for. For safety critical you need either full automation (if proved safe) or sufficient motivated humans - anything else is just a case of when not if for a disaster
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Re: Red X means don’t drive in that lane

Post by darkcape »

From the photos it looks like there was a gantry further up ahead in view, so he should've seen the hard shoulder was open. Also looks like a CCTV camera was wiped out in the crash - potential blind spother which is why he wasn't spotted?

I think safety critical means they'll call you in if someone else calls in sick etc not that they'll haul you back for an investigation
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kit
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Re: Red X means don’t drive in that lane

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Reading wrote:I would suggest semi automation is a BAD thing - all changes should be by human response to an alarm/light/flag etc, otherwise people become complacent and "leave it to the machine", hence the issues with Tesla self driving where nearly all accidents are due to drivers assuming the software could do something it wasn't designed for. For safety critical you need either full automation (if proved safe) or sufficient motivated humans - anything else is just a case of when not if for a disaster
The calculation needed to slow following traffic sufficiently to prevent it concertining into slowing traffic ahead, I doubt any human could do it for one camera, forget many miles of motorway. It's one of those jobs that computers are much better at, even if they don't get it right 100% of the time.
Bendo wrote:Yes it was a daft place to stop if the vehicle was not disabled, but the question is, why in 2 mins had the lane not been closed? How long does it take to detect a stranded vehicle and close the lane?
Speaking as someone who does a similar "safety critical" but sometimes tedious job - the operators are human and will occasionally sneak off for a cup of tea if things are quiet, or will be discussing the football with a colleague rather than paying attention.

It's probably a job that will eventually be replaced with artifical intelligence - which will then get blamed when it misses a fraction of that missed by humans.
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Re: Red X means don’t drive in that lane

Post by ManomayLR »

The M42 has MIDAS sensors in the emergency refuges, IIRC, but with the ERAs on most ALR sections being made of concrete instead of the original tarmac on DHSR schemes MIDAS sensors are no longer in the refuge area.

That worries me-since CCTV is on MS4s on ALR if there isn't one nearby or a CCTV column those in an ERA who need to get out or even those who are unlucky enough to have a live lane stall.
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Re: Red X means don’t drive in that lane

Post by darkcape »

EpicChef wrote:The M42 has MIDAS sensors in the emergency refuges, IIRC, but with the ERAs on most ALR sections being made of concrete instead of the original tarmac on DHSR schemes MIDAS sensors are no longer in the refuge area.

That worries me-since CCTV is on MS4s on ALR if there isn't one nearby or a CCTV column those in an ERA who need to get out or even those who are unlucky enough to have a live lane stall.
MIDAS isn't used to detect vehicles on refuges. The sensors alert an operator at RCC who will use CCTV to verify.
Refuges are still made from asphalt, not sure where these concrete ones are but no such things are built anymore. Perhaps you're confusing maintenance lay bys?
The sensors I think you refer to are induction loops which are cut into the road surface and work with MIDAS, however the HE is now moving to using verge-mounted radar sensors which are also connected in to MIDAS.
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Re: Red X means don’t drive in that lane

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By concrete I probably mean asphalt- the M42 and M1 refuges had tarmac not asphalt.
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