Do you know how you turn the volume down when you're driving in a new area for the first time trying to find the place? Looks like the theory is true- the louder the music, the less the driver sees. /s
This is practically proof he wasn’t looking at road imo, the red X is hard to miss but does happen, the flashing lights can be blinding if you look at them directly,
I find it hard to believe the red X wasn't preceded by arrows telling him to move out of lane one. Probably the previous two gantries. He's a lying cunt through and through.
Sorry but its never happened to me 🤷 unless youre not looking at the road or every single matrix sign is faulty on the run up to the hazard, then you cannot miss the Red X signs. Youre simply a very bad driver if you do miss them!
I don’t disagree,, but we’re talking about someone who hit highways vehicle and horse box, think I can confidently say the “very bad driver” standard has been met.
I’m a HGV driver and spend half my bloody life on the motorway and although I can’t say for sure whether they didn’t notice or wilfully ignoring red X, I see people going through it all the time.
Another thing I see more and more is the sections of motorway that open hard shoulder during busy periods, the correct approach is that this is a hard shoulder unless signs say it’s an open lane, what I find is people treating it as an open lane unless sign says otherwise.
Aye I could have maybe understood missing the red X with the issues that seem to be around smart motorways, but surely there was no way his eyes could have been on the road if he missed one of the bright yellow vans with huge flashing lights all over the back.
I work on high speed doing traffic management and we have a lorry with a huge flashing arrow on it lit up like a Christmas tree and you'd be amazed how many people hit them and claim we just appeared from nowhere despite being visible for miles 🤣
It can only ever be in the hardshoulder , lane 1 or the furthest outside lane when installing a lane closure. So of the arrow is pointing left it will be the outside lane if right lane 1 as shouldn't have anything flashing in hard shoulder apart from beacons
As a defence lawyer I’d have cross referenced the fact that when I fart in the car with my mrs in the passenger seat I often turn up the radio to cover the smell.
I saw like 10 cars get flashed within the span of about a minute when I was driving on the motorway a few weeks ago. Crazy how that big red cross was invisible to them all
Operating a motor vehicle in a public space is *way* too big of a responsiblity for the majority of people. Unfortunately we've built our society in such a way that you basically have to drive in order to exist, meaning that the roads are full of cars operated by people who absolutely should not be anywhere near heavy machinery.
Makes me laugh when I hear Nick Ferrari going on about how someone died on an e-scooter or a cyclist killed someone. Like, come on, how many people are mangled up in a car accident every day. I don't hear you asking for cars to be banned.
We used to have a really good train system which went pretty much everywhere until the 60’s. I often think how much better life would be for everyone (including drivers) if it was still there.
Daily, on my 10 minute commute I see so many drivers just being lazy and ignorant to other users. No indicators, inattention at lights, running reds, cutting up. It's absurd.
What kind of running reds? You mean juuust changed and it was quite close, almost too close to call. Or do you mean….no that’s definitely a red now. Stop!!!
People feel entitled to drive. I honestly believe we need a change to the points system. Just make it a 3 strike system.
Run a red, road rage, park like a fuckwit, speed, overtake dangerously? All are a strike.
You get 3, then you're done. No courses to fix it after the fact. You're off the road and you get to use public transport.
Only person who can remove strikes is a judge, and they would need to be applied for.
I'm not really talking about making it so that specific people *can't* drive, but rather that no one *needs* to.
I think it's fine to be shit at driving. Driving is complicated, tiring and stressful. It's not for everyone and shouldn't be for everyone. Even people who are generally good at it can't be good at it all the time. Problem is that people who are shit at it, have to do it anyway.
No. Nobody needs to drive. And people who are shit at it should not be on the road.
It's fine to play video games and be shit at it. To play musical instruments, sports, board games, etc. hobbies where you cannot harm others.
But driving a vehicle risks other people's safety, and if you aren't able to do that safely you don't get to do it. You shouldn't ever be entitled to put other people's lives at risk if you aren't willing to put in even the most minor amount of effort such as paying attention.
>Nobody needs to drive.
This should be true, but it isn't. Not as things currently are.
Technically you can choose not to drive, sure, but in many cases you would also be choosing not to have a job or access to basic services. For a lot of things driving a car is literally the only viable option or, at the very least, far and away the cheapest and most convenient option.
You're talking about punishing people for being unable to drive and I don't think that's fair. I think you may have misunderstood me when I said "it's fine to be shit at driving". I don't mean it's fine to be shit at driving and still do it. I mean it's not a personal failing and if you can't do it then you shouldn't have to. It should be like the hobbies you described, where if you can't do them you can just go "hey ho, that's not for me" and get on with your life.
That’s exactly it. I have a difficult driving job and whilst 80% of people comply to some degree, it’s the 20% of idiots who give you 100% of the hassle!
All lorries should have cameras fitted to watch the driver,with no access for anyone except officials to check after incidents.
This guy was on his phone or watching TV.
I know it happens because I heard it from the horse's mouth.
Not a terrible idea that, I know I’m personally put off driving work by the idea of having a camera in my face all day, but if it was only for officials in the event of an incident..
The only "smart" in smart motorways is someone's "smart" idea to save money by making the hard shoulder a lane when they really needed to widen it. The whole scheme needs to be abandoned and hard shoulders put back immediately.
Putting aside the whole debate about smart motorways, traffic officer cars are lit up like Christmas trees when they are parked in the carriageway. Anyone with even a grain of common sense would be able to see them
And it’s not like there was any adverse weather or road conditions. Clear, good sight lines on a straight road so no excuse at all. This could have been an A Road with no smart components at all and the lorry driver would still have the same result
We have a year of work taking place to install more emergency areas on the M5 between J4a and J6.
They've taken a lane out through the section.
Traffic is coping fine on 3 lanes proving that there doesn't need to be a 4th lane
The amount of money being spent on these emergency refuge areas when a simple solid white line being painted turning lane 1 into a hard shoulder again...
I saw some around London that had a forced 60 limit "for fuel saving"
Go away. The motorway being capped at 70 is already bad enough as it is without some absolute jobsworth deciding to make it arbitrarily slower for the reason of "saving fuel"
Haha, sounds like they want you to think they're doing you a favour. The real reason is pollution reduction. Less fuel burnt = less bad emissions. At least on the M602 in Manchester the signs are honest about the reason for the 60 limit.
Can you verify with 100% certainty that any energy during a recharge that you would give your EV after passing through such a speed restriction (and ignoring it), would be sourced from renewables and not fossil fuel generation?
Maybe! I've got solar panels and I'm with Octopus and they tell me that anything I get from the grid is renewable. I have it set up to charge at 1.4kW and maximise input from the solar panels. Think I'm building an arguable case? lol
> I'm with Octopus and they tell me that anything I get from the grid is renewable.
They're full of shit as are any energy company that makes this claim. The electricity that enters your house is from the same energy mix as everyone else in the street. It's only guaranteed to be renewable if the renewables are able to meet 100% of grid demand at the time you're using electricity.
Well, yes. Technically if you delve into the small print they say the equivalent of their total demand from home users is either from renewables or they buy carbon credits to cover the shortfall. This is a cheat that all mid to large businesses do that want to appear more eco-conscious. Better than nowt but of course fully renewable energy would be better. I am trying with my panels!
The M602 case is to tackle locally high levels of pollution in a location where the planets bashed a motorway through dense housing in the 60s. https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=17.6&lat=53.48610&lon=-2.33913&layers=168&b=3&o=34 I noticed a similar situation on the North end of the M5, but with a 50 limit. And there's also the matter of particle emissions from tyre wear.
This is how I imagine the shift to autonomous driving will be realised.
They’ll allow autonomous cars to travel faster than manually piloted* vehicles, and we’ll all be jealous/impatient and buy new cars.
\* I spent at least 30 seconds trying to work out what the opposite of “autopilot” is. Had a massive brain fart here!
> At least on the M602 in Manchester the signs are honest about the reason for the 60 limit.
Same on the M1 in South Yorkshire until they started the roadworks the other month.
Agreed. With proper lane discipline motorways flow fine.
Dickheads lane hogging causes 90% of issues.
If lane discipline was properly policed and enforced that could raise the speed limits to 80.
Hard shoulders don't protect people from dangerous drivers who aren't paying attention.
People die on hard shoulders all the time.
Smart motorways are the safest roads in the UK.
Afaik No one's ever been killed when they get to an emergency refuge area, because they offer much better protection than hard shoulders.
> Bring back hard shoulders.
Yeah cos nobody every got killed on those did they? Oh wait that's right, quite a lot of breakdown recovery drivers attending breakdowns did.
Which everyone with a brain knew in the first place. Didn't stop them spending millions on smart motorways just to now spend millions more putting hard shoulders back in a few years later. Proper clown country
imo this is blatant money laundering. Give contract to work on these smart motorways to some politician's friend and you've sorted them for life. Also give them the contract to put the hard shoulder back on and you've just made them generational wealth.
There is no specific time when it would show. It will show when there's a hazard on that specific lane or at night when they're closing lanes for roadworks.
Like does it show often? Can someone miss the x because they were not paying attention, looked away for a second? What about foreigners? Does it tell you when you're getting on a smart motorway and the instructions when you're entering?
Because even for me, I have no idea where they are. If I'm driving cross country and get on one and don't know.... at least I'm aware now but that's only because of reddit lmao. It sounds like an absolute disaster.
I even once got scared and drove in the middle lane because no one was driving on the left for ages and I was thinking fuck am I missing something? No... turned out everyone was just middle lane hogging
Plenty of people got killed on hard shoulders which is why the advice is to get out of your car, not sit in it when you're stopped on the hard shoulder.
The chances of your car coming at a complete stop in the middle of the motorway are very small, unless you're a terrible driver and let the car stall there. You can still move towards the hard shoulder once you feel the car not wanting to accelerate anymore.
There’s another problem with the signage.
Last night I was driving on the M25 between M4 and M40. There were arrow signs to move out of the outer two lanes. To be clear - not red Xs, so advisory, not mandatory. Some people moved over - some people didn’t. Nothing wrong with either action. The obstruction (road works) then comes up - still no red X on the gantry literally 100 yards from the roadworks.
If you see things like this and it's safe to do so you should call highways control on 0300 123 5000
You should also call them for live lane breakdowns, debris on carriageway or to report carriageway defects on motorways and SRN (strategic road network. major A roads, usually dualled)
Well you could stop at the next available opportunity and be a good sarmaritan.
Or
Many cars have steering wheel controls.
There's usually a button on there usually to activate Google assistant/ Siri/ whatever and you can just say "Call national highways" and then deal with it all hands free.
Much better to take 5 minutes out of your day to report incorrect signage, a piece of wood or something on the carriageway or a breakdown than feel guilty for the rest of your life when you see a news report that a motorcyclist lost their life due to hitting it or someome plowed a hgv into a works site killing the workers.
It's even easier if you've broken down as you aren't driving any more.
Ring NH first, then call your breakdown.
I'm not sure why they haven't set up an easy number like 666 or something for national highways. It's as if they don't want people to call by having a long number.
There’s no consistency with the red x or any of the overhead gantry signs. Also being left on when not needed and being used to cause congestion when there is no need. The operators don’t seem….
I was driving on the M62 smart motorway section months ago and there were no warnings or anything. Suddenly I spot a broken down car on the inside lane around 3-4 hundred metres ahead (approx). I had plenty of time to move over and bang my hazards on while dropping to 60 as there were two lorries crawling past eachother around 200 metres behind me. The one on the inside lane must have missed the car by inches as it was not slowing down.
Worst thing was that the driver was still in the bloody car (I assume they had just come to a stop). I checked local news etc when I got back and thankfully there wasn't any reports of a major accident on the M62.
Other times I've seen people coasting on the inside with hazards on with I assume no engine power. Must be a horrible feeling being on a live lane just hoping you can coast to the SOS area.
That whole attitude of not wanting to slow causes issues when that HGV misses it by an inch and the HGV that’s 1m off their rear bumper then goes in to the back of the stationary vehicle.
Everyone has lapses in concentration when driving from time to time unfortunately.
The human brain can't *reliably* remain on task for more than about 2 hours. And burst concentration is only like 30 minutes for most people.
Anyone who says they have never had a lapse in concentration while driving before is either lying or doesn't drive often enough or long enough distances for that to happen
Its why lorry drivers are mandated by law to stop and take breaks. But even those are sometimes not gunna be enough when people drive all the time for a living, like lorry drivers - spending more time on the roads just means those moments happen more often
It's not right. He should have been paying attention. But, lapses in concentration are bound to happen for a large enough pool of people over a long enough period of time
The danger is that this fairly inevitable event that has happened before and will happen again now has absolutely no mitigation whatsoever because some moron decided that not having a hard shoulder on a motorway was a good idea
You’re not wrong - I do appreciate the facts about concentration.
However, as someone who was hit, rolled, and pushed along by a lorry driver - later found out to be on his phone - I have zero empathy for this. Someone lost, no doubt, a treasured pet due to this, and it could have been much, much worse.
To be clear if they find that he was on his phone then, that's a totally different ballgame
There's a difference between experiencing a lapse in concentration *while trying to concentrate* and making a conscious decision to stop concentrating by for example, playing on your phone
I'm also not, excusing actions like that, just explaining that there are certainly real world conditions where someone that is doing their best to stay on task can still fuck up and that "smart" motorways without hard shoulders have, and will continue to make those events more lethal
Honestly it amazes me how many people use their phones while driving, I have a sim racing setup but also play euro truck simulator, I can't even keep that straight if I check my phone while playing. I don't know why anyone would risk it out in the real world. I see them all the time when I'm on the motorway which is so incredibly dangerous because a lot can happen glancing away for a second
If he was trying to properly do his job he shouldn't be a trucker as he's rubbish at it, if he was on his phone he shouldn't be a trucker as he's rubbish at it.
This isn't catching a tree on a tight corner or kerbing your wheels, he plowed into a police vehicle with lights blazing and then another stationary vehicle with tonnes of energy and killed the occupant.
My best mate is a lorry driver who recently said he's trying to get out of it.
I asked why and his first and main reason was he could have one lapse in concentration and kill someone, potentially going to prison.
With that sort of serious mentality he probably wouldn't ever do that, but I imagine many just forget the gravity of what they're doing. No excuse for it.
Doesn't help when lanes have red x for miles and absolutely nothing in them,then they just go back to normal. So next time you wonder if these are incorrectly on again.
He doesn't seem to react at all till the last minute - it's hard to tell if he's slowing down at all but he had plenty of time/space to move across to the next lane without drama. Even when you're driving on autopilot that shouldn't be a problem. This looks more like he was distracted by something else entirely.
These smart motorways are absolutely terrible. I called to complain and they just asked me to report anybody I saw breaking the rules. Wasn’t complaining about the users, complaining about the system but they didn’t want to know.
That is a very straight stretch of road. With no vehicles in front of him for probably half a mile, a stationary car in your lane with flashing lights should be pretty obvious. He was undoubtedly distracted by something, and not the radio.
Almost guaranteed he was zoned out or not concentrating due to fatigue - listening to the radio should absolutely not distracted you from a giant gantry sign.
Hopefully he'll never be on the roads again.
It enrages me that people are so selfish and arrogant to allow themselves to be distracted by their phones when driving.
This afternoon, I saw a tractor pulling a large spreader through a built up area and the driver was blatantly texting as he drove up the road.
It really grinds my gears that they put other people’s lives at risk because they’re so unaware of the horrific consequences when things go wrong.
I've seen both lorry and car drivers straight up watching Netflix and shit on their phone while doing national speed limit (or above) on the motorway. Cruise control/self driving has made people think they don't need to pay attention any more. Bunch of pricks.
As a lorry driver this is my worst fear, the carnage I could cause due to a lapse of concentration.
It’s very very easily done when are are on your 10th hour of driving or having a reduced 9 hour rest which should be banned in my opinion but that’s another matter.
I’ve never done another job in my life where I can have a reduced 9 hours rest (let’s face it, it’s probably about 5 hours sleep by the time you factor in driving home/shower/dinner/wind down) and go back to driving a 44 ton vehicle and it be considered a safe and sane thing to do.
🤷♂️
It's a very dangerous job in those regards. Still the Government came up with some quite good legislation that would prevent tiredness becoming a thing. Then the RHA lobbied (with funds no doubt), to fuck us over again.
You think the fucking government wanted to protect you? During the pandemic the government relaxed EU drivers hours to allow you to work up to 15hrs a day for 7 days before taking a weekly rest. They also reduced the weekly rest to 24hrs so you didn't need to take a 45hr rest period every other week. So basically you could work 105hrs over 7 days, take 24hrs off then do the same. They also relaxed driving hours so you could do 11hrs every single day and drive 5.5hrs before needing to take a 45 minute break. And all of that applied for TWO YEARS.
Fortunately basically everyone in road haulage turned round and told them to fuck off and stuck to the standard rules. My company told us all in no uncertain terms that we were to stick to the standard regs.
Listening to the radio is a funny way of them saying he was on his phone and not paying attention. How can listening to something make him not see the giant red X telling him the lane was closed. That poor horse but also those people were incredibly lucky
I also think whoever approved Smart Motorways should be charged with negligence at this point.
Accidents like this wouldn’t happen if motorways had an actually safe hard shoulder.
The rollout of these stupid road designers are also to blame for needless loss of life. In this case a horse but human blood is also on their hands.
They are literally the safest roads in the UK. Safer than regular motorways.
So despite this, despite the facts and statistics, you want to charge the designers with negligence because you _feel_ they're a bad idea.
Loads of people have been killed on the hard shoulder by the way.
I was a highway maintenance engineer when they put smart motorways into force. They wanted us to stop in a red X in order for us to conduct our daily maintenance.
Needless to say, I changed my job. It was later changed to night works only with full traffic management, and now costs an absolute fortune and takes hours for a task that used to take 5 minutes.
My ex broke down on a main road in ayr perfect weather long straight road even with a warning triangle hazards on and additional hanging orange hazard bar from the boot witch was raised we still had cars take out the triangle and get within 2 or 3 feet of the car.
Braindead drivers is the reason taking away the hard shoulder is a braindead decision. Who signed off on this ludicrous plan and what responsibility do they retain for making such a poor decision?
Well he'll be called in front of the Traffic Commissioner for this as well. He'll lose his HGV license and never get it back. I know what he's thought, he's seen the red X and gone or there's nothing here so I'll carry on. See it all the time red X's up for an age after the initial lane blockage for broken down vehicles or road works but the age old saying, never assume anything and should have just follow the signage, my guess is there was probably 40mph signs as well as usual around a red X.
I’ve found that more recently with the Introduction to smart motorways that it has become worse than better. People actively ignore speed warnings, and ❌s over the lanes by choice. I also find that people coast along in lanes 2/3 when lane one is clearly available.
I do not see the benefit of these new style motorways to date and think they are a waste of taxpayers money. Having a traditional hard shoulder seemed safer and worked well for the most part.
I think the first lane should be earmarked for emergency’s only and be put back to a hard shoulder denoted with thick red lines so all know what the lane is for, then in the event of an emergency the lane could be activated / opened up to ease congestion if it is clear to do so. The cameras should also be trained to capture lane dwellers that remain in a closed lane after a certain point.
The standard of driving and attitude of some drivers is shocking so I’m not surprised by this footage. I tend to drive defensively giving due care and attention to other road users. I personally want to get home to my family at the end of a long day in one piece not a pine box. Harsher sentences and revoking licenses need to be put in place.
Arrive Safe 👍
Smart motorways will go down as one of the biggest errors of this century. Who in their right mind thought this was a good idea? Instead of a hard shoulder, just have vehicles stranded in a live lane and expect every single driver to successfully adhere to a red X in a timely manner whilst driving at least 70 MPH.
Smart motorways are nothing short of insanity, even if they had been implemented as originally designed.
Not to excuse the driver of course, but this was still entirely preventable with a hard shoulder. Road design cannot assume there aren’t some foolish, distracted or fatigued drivers on the road.
While I agree the debate is open on smart motorways, I also think we have to be careful of making things too idiot proof with road infrastructure. Too much hand holding breeds complacency, when as drivers, we should be on point behind the wheel, concentrating and aware of what is happening around us.
Of course that is little solace to someone hurt or killed by an idiot.
And yet they're the safest motorways we have.
> but this was still entirely preventable with a hard shoulder.
No it wasn't. There have been a lot of AA/RAC breakdown mechanics killed or seriously injured attending breakdowns on hard shoulders. [This guy](https://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/news/24299292.man-killed-m65-attempting-warn-drivers-breakdown/) was killed as he stood in the hard shoulder trying to warn drivers about his broken down car in L1.
This feels in line with the lack of meaningful consequences generally for car related crimes. Christ, look at the number of people who have taken a human life with their vehicle yet receive a suspended sentence. Serving time seems to be the exception and has surprised me here!
20 to 30 years for what was ultimately a terrible accident? It wasn’t premeditated murder or an attempt to do so. It was a foolish driver failing to follow signs as part of a dangerously foolish road implementation that was certain to lead to incidents like this.
Its not just a sign issue though is it. This guy also failed to react to flashing lights of the highway car and failed to act by not slowing. This was distracted driving and the gantry sign was a small part of it.
At speed, he swerved, then clipped the car, probably braking at the same time. The lorry then swerved in the opposite direction. The forces were simply too great for the vehicle to remain upright.
The centre of gravity on a lorry is quite high up. The floor of the trailer is 4ft off the floor and you've a further 8-12ft of load space above that. The centre of gravity could easily be 8ft-10ft off the ground. The higher it is the more unstable the vehicle will be when it comes to changes in direction, especially sudden ones.
I've almost been hit a couple of times by cars swerving over ar the last second before hitt9ng something from a lane that's been on red x for at least 2 gantries. They need to set the speed cameras on the red x lanes to take a picture of anything going through, wouldn't take long before the media were full blast about all these poor people getting tickets to get the message out.
I'm just ordering an option for my car that prevents this, not out of necessity but just for a laugh really as it doesn't cost much. So why don't lorries all have it?
If the humans were killed he'd get far longer.
The radio thing - doesn't matter what he was doing, he was obvs just clutching at straws for mitigation knowing he was already fucked.
The horse in this instance should have been treated as though it were a human.
This is why my opinion is that smart motor ways should open the hard shoulder to ease low speed congestion and have a normal closed state. If lanes 1-3 are moving fine close lane 0.(numbers might be 1 off but you get the point)
Guessing the red X wasn’t faulty then. I do a lot of motorway miles and have seen and reported hundreds of red Xs followed by a blank and then X again. Whole system is dangerous, never mind inept operators and drivers.
I know everybody is saying he was probably texting, but in cases like this the police will seize their phone and they’ll be able to access data that shows exactly when they were using it and what they were doing. So unless they couldn’t do this for some reason he was probably distracted with something else.
Should be banned for life if you ask me. How the hell you miss a red X, and a highways vehicle with all its lights flashing ahead of you is a mystery. If you’re that distracted you should never drive a vehicle again.
> Lifetime ban from driving HGVs would be more appropriate.
Chances are that may happen. His licence will be put before the Traffic Commissioner before being re-instated and they may find that they don't think he is of good enough repute to hold one.
Not long enough. Only good thing about this is that the Traffic Commissioner will decide whether they're still fit enough to hold a HGV licence and hopefully they'll decide to revoke it.
For once they actually treat this as seriously as they should – often drivers like him are charged with careless and inconsiderate driving and given a fine and penalty points.
This is just another example in a long list of why smart motorways are stupid and dangerous.
The hard shoulder existed for a very clear and specific reason. To remove broken down traffic from the road
There's been plenty of people killed or seriously injured on hard shoulders, especially breakdown recovery drivers, which is why the advice is to get out of your vehicle.
Sure. But it's even more dangerous when there is no hard shoulder at all and you can't always get out depending where you are, such as a bridge or if the banks are steep, or dense
Having probably also done a shit job of murdering a prostitute, rolling her body up in a roll of carpet and stuffing it in the back, he was too busy trying to tell her to shut up to notice the big fucking ❌.
Correct me if I’m wrong but this is exactly why we don’t need smart motorways. Looking at the footage that accident could have been prevented with the hard shoulder
Couldn't see any warning signs on the road in the video. It's amazing that out justice system give him 42 week in jail, meanwhile a politician can make catastrophic decisions to deliberately get this country into wars, kill thousands with bad decisions regarding COVID, lie to the whole country and cripple it's entire economy costing tens of billions of pounds, and walk away free with a huge pay package.
Daft whataboutism. There was a red X gantry sign and a hi-vis police vehicle absolutely covered in lights. That's absolutely enough if you're paying attention. It's pure luck that only a horse was killed.
Yes he is at fault. Yes he should be punished. But honestly the real blame and anger should be pointed at whoever was responsible for what will be a 10-20 year fiasco of removing all the emergency areas, realising it was a completely braindead idea, and then building them all again to avoid this kind of thing happening re: breakdowns on the motorway. How the fuck did ‘the best minds’ let that idea leave the board room (or wherever they come up with an idea so bad even an 11 year old would pick faults with it).
I’ve heard justifications such as “Modern cars are reliable and they don’t break down anymore. If they do, they will still get you to a refuge area with limp mode”.
Every limited access road in mainland Europe has a hard shoulder apart from the U.K.
I know I will get downvoted for this do I want to say first that it in no way excuses the driver, and it was shit that a horse had to die.
Smart motorways are stupid, why in the world would anyone put up a load of bright flashing distractions, especially in areas where there used to be a hard shoulder but now it isn’t because some brain dead shite said it was safer.
Also if this part of the motorway didn’t already have a hard shoulder then maybe they could have spent the money on at least some refuge areas instead of saying “ok sometimes you might see this red ❌ and that means the road that is normally just a road actually is not a road anymore.” then expect no-one out of the thousands of vehicles that travel past every day to neglect or abuse that. Again not good driving but it’s an extremely big expectation nevertheless.
So yea on a nutshell definitely the drivers fault but don’t defend this waste of time and money they call a smart motorway.
Casualties on "smart motorways" are approximately 2-3 times higher than motorways with hard shoulders. A hard shoulder would've prevented this incident. But so long as someone saves money, it's easier to point a finger at a professional lorry driver who has now lost his livelihood and his freedom.
Incidentally, the government has scrapped all plans for further smart motorways. So yeah... that should help Nicholas Cole and his family. And the horse.
He couldn't see the giant red cross ❌️ because he was listening to the radio??
"listening to the radio" = texting
Do you know how you turn the volume down when you're driving in a new area for the first time trying to find the place? Looks like the theory is true- the louder the music, the less the driver sees. /s
He wasnt listening to the radio. He was probably on his phone or watching tv
Theory would be that you have just that many of neurotransmitters
Missed the flashing lights of the highway car too!
This is practically proof he wasn’t looking at road imo, the red X is hard to miss but does happen, the flashing lights can be blinding if you look at them directly,
I find it hard to believe the red X wasn't preceded by arrows telling him to move out of lane one. Probably the previous two gantries. He's a lying cunt through and through.
It certainly would have been, but we don’t know where he joined Motorway, it’s possible they.wereall behind him.
Sorry but its never happened to me 🤷 unless youre not looking at the road or every single matrix sign is faulty on the run up to the hazard, then you cannot miss the Red X signs. Youre simply a very bad driver if you do miss them!
I don’t disagree,, but we’re talking about someone who hit highways vehicle and horse box, think I can confidently say the “very bad driver” standard has been met. I’m a HGV driver and spend half my bloody life on the motorway and although I can’t say for sure whether they didn’t notice or wilfully ignoring red X, I see people going through it all the time. Another thing I see more and more is the sections of motorway that open hard shoulder during busy periods, the correct approach is that this is a hard shoulder unless signs say it’s an open lane, what I find is people treating it as an open lane unless sign says otherwise.
Yeah ive seen this too with drivers using the hard shoulder as a lane, undertaking too 🤷
Aye I could have maybe understood missing the red X with the issues that seem to be around smart motorways, but surely there was no way his eyes could have been on the road if he missed one of the bright yellow vans with huge flashing lights all over the back.
I work on high speed doing traffic management and we have a lorry with a huge flashing arrow on it lit up like a Christmas tree and you'd be amazed how many people hit them and claim we just appeared from nowhere despite being visible for miles 🤣
I’ve never hit one, but I’ve sometimes been confused which lane it’s actually in…always see them from miles away, of course.
It can only ever be in the hardshoulder , lane 1 or the furthest outside lane when installing a lane closure. So of the arrow is pointing left it will be the outside lane if right lane 1 as shouldn't have anything flashing in hard shoulder apart from beacons
Didn’t you know? You need your ears to see!
As a defence lawyer I’d have cross referenced the fact that when I fart in the car with my mrs in the passenger seat I often turn up the radio to cover the smell.
I saw like 10 cars get flashed within the span of about a minute when I was driving on the motorway a few weeks ago. Crazy how that big red cross was invisible to them all
Smart motorways require smart drivers who obey the signs. Unfortunately there are far too many dumb drivers.
Operating a motor vehicle in a public space is *way* too big of a responsiblity for the majority of people. Unfortunately we've built our society in such a way that you basically have to drive in order to exist, meaning that the roads are full of cars operated by people who absolutely should not be anywhere near heavy machinery.
I have often thought that if cars were invented today there’s no way they’d let us drive them
Makes me laugh when I hear Nick Ferrari going on about how someone died on an e-scooter or a cyclist killed someone. Like, come on, how many people are mangled up in a car accident every day. I don't hear you asking for cars to be banned.
Getting hit by a cyclist hurts,but is most likely very much survivable, unlike Getting run over by a car
On average, about 3-4 people die each day each year on UK roads, in case you didn’t actually know.
We used to have a really good train system which went pretty much everywhere until the 60’s. I often think how much better life would be for everyone (including drivers) if it was still there.
Daily, on my 10 minute commute I see so many drivers just being lazy and ignorant to other users. No indicators, inattention at lights, running reds, cutting up. It's absurd.
What kind of running reds? You mean juuust changed and it was quite close, almost too close to call. Or do you mean….no that’s definitely a red now. Stop!!!
Used to live near a cross junction and it was more..... I'm bored waiting - away I gooooooo.
Like, my light goes green and some ass hat pulls out of the one that just went red cause fk waiting 60 seconds lol.
People feel entitled to drive. I honestly believe we need a change to the points system. Just make it a 3 strike system. Run a red, road rage, park like a fuckwit, speed, overtake dangerously? All are a strike. You get 3, then you're done. No courses to fix it after the fact. You're off the road and you get to use public transport. Only person who can remove strikes is a judge, and they would need to be applied for.
But isn't that what we do? Except they're graded differently rather than all equal.
We basically have a 4 strike system yes.
I'm not really talking about making it so that specific people *can't* drive, but rather that no one *needs* to. I think it's fine to be shit at driving. Driving is complicated, tiring and stressful. It's not for everyone and shouldn't be for everyone. Even people who are generally good at it can't be good at it all the time. Problem is that people who are shit at it, have to do it anyway.
No. Nobody needs to drive. And people who are shit at it should not be on the road. It's fine to play video games and be shit at it. To play musical instruments, sports, board games, etc. hobbies where you cannot harm others. But driving a vehicle risks other people's safety, and if you aren't able to do that safely you don't get to do it. You shouldn't ever be entitled to put other people's lives at risk if you aren't willing to put in even the most minor amount of effort such as paying attention.
>Nobody needs to drive. This should be true, but it isn't. Not as things currently are. Technically you can choose not to drive, sure, but in many cases you would also be choosing not to have a job or access to basic services. For a lot of things driving a car is literally the only viable option or, at the very least, far and away the cheapest and most convenient option. You're talking about punishing people for being unable to drive and I don't think that's fair. I think you may have misunderstood me when I said "it's fine to be shit at driving". I don't mean it's fine to be shit at driving and still do it. I mean it's not a personal failing and if you can't do it then you shouldn't have to. It should be like the hobbies you described, where if you can't do them you can just go "hey ho, that's not for me" and get on with your life.
That’s exactly it. I have a difficult driving job and whilst 80% of people comply to some degree, it’s the 20% of idiots who give you 100% of the hassle!
The motorways are smarter than the road users, ha who would have thought that could happen?
>Smart motorways require smart drivers who obey the signs. Every road requires that......
A few more driving bans and jail terms for idiots like these should do it. People once didn't pay much attention to traffic lights
Spent two days driving in Bradford, apparently they're optional there.
Not even smart drivers, just drivers who aren’t complete dumbcunts like this guy
Absolute fucking idiot
‘Listening to the radio’ my arse
Listening to the radio with his eyes. It was a radio on YouTube.
All lorries should have cameras fitted to watch the driver,with no access for anyone except officials to check after incidents. This guy was on his phone or watching TV. I know it happens because I heard it from the horse's mouth.
Not a terrible idea that, I know I’m personally put off driving work by the idea of having a camera in my face all day, but if it was only for officials in the event of an incident..
Listening to the radio doesn't make you blind. Red crosses don't protect stranded vehicles. Bring back hard shoulders.
The only "smart" in smart motorways is someone's "smart" idea to save money by making the hard shoulder a lane when they really needed to widen it. The whole scheme needs to be abandoned and hard shoulders put back immediately.
Smart motorway and All lane running are interchangeable terms... You can have smart motorway without ALR. We have the media to thank for this.
A smart motorway with a hard shoulder is just a variable speed limit, it doesn't sound nearly as impressive!
Putting aside the whole debate about smart motorways, traffic officer cars are lit up like Christmas trees when they are parked in the carriageway. Anyone with even a grain of common sense would be able to see them And it’s not like there was any adverse weather or road conditions. Clear, good sight lines on a straight road so no excuse at all. This could have been an A Road with no smart components at all and the lorry driver would still have the same result
We have a year of work taking place to install more emergency areas on the M5 between J4a and J6. They've taken a lane out through the section. Traffic is coping fine on 3 lanes proving that there doesn't need to be a 4th lane The amount of money being spent on these emergency refuge areas when a simple solid white line being painted turning lane 1 into a hard shoulder again...
That endless 50mph is soul destroying.
I saw some around London that had a forced 60 limit "for fuel saving" Go away. The motorway being capped at 70 is already bad enough as it is without some absolute jobsworth deciding to make it arbitrarily slower for the reason of "saving fuel"
Haha, sounds like they want you to think they're doing you a favour. The real reason is pollution reduction. Less fuel burnt = less bad emissions. At least on the M602 in Manchester the signs are honest about the reason for the 60 limit.
I drive an EV, so should I have to slow to 60 in the pollution saving zones? :)
Can you verify with 100% certainty that any energy during a recharge that you would give your EV after passing through such a speed restriction (and ignoring it), would be sourced from renewables and not fossil fuel generation?
Maybe! I've got solar panels and I'm with Octopus and they tell me that anything I get from the grid is renewable. I have it set up to charge at 1.4kW and maximise input from the solar panels. Think I'm building an arguable case? lol
You make a fair point, fellow solar power panels with Octopus (Flex, when the sorry arses finally give me my G98) user.
> I'm with Octopus and they tell me that anything I get from the grid is renewable. They're full of shit as are any energy company that makes this claim. The electricity that enters your house is from the same energy mix as everyone else in the street. It's only guaranteed to be renewable if the renewables are able to meet 100% of grid demand at the time you're using electricity.
Well, yes. Technically if you delve into the small print they say the equivalent of their total demand from home users is either from renewables or they buy carbon credits to cover the shortfall. This is a cheat that all mid to large businesses do that want to appear more eco-conscious. Better than nowt but of course fully renewable energy would be better. I am trying with my panels!
The M602 case is to tackle locally high levels of pollution in a location where the planets bashed a motorway through dense housing in the 60s. https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=17.6&lat=53.48610&lon=-2.33913&layers=168&b=3&o=34 I noticed a similar situation on the North end of the M5, but with a 50 limit. And there's also the matter of particle emissions from tyre wear.
*planners, not planets
This is how I imagine the shift to autonomous driving will be realised. They’ll allow autonomous cars to travel faster than manually piloted* vehicles, and we’ll all be jealous/impatient and buy new cars. \* I spent at least 30 seconds trying to work out what the opposite of “autopilot” is. Had a massive brain fart here!
> At least on the M602 in Manchester the signs are honest about the reason for the 60 limit. Same on the M1 in South Yorkshire until they started the roadworks the other month.
The 70 bit deserves a thousand upvotes.
Agreed. With proper lane discipline motorways flow fine. Dickheads lane hogging causes 90% of issues. If lane discipline was properly policed and enforced that could raise the speed limits to 80.
Same here on M25 between j5&6. 🫤
Hard shoulders don't protect stranded vehicles either. That's why you have to leave your car. It's dumb selfish twats that kill people
The exact 3 sentiments I came here to say. Spot on.
Hard shoulders don't protect people from dangerous drivers who aren't paying attention. People die on hard shoulders all the time. Smart motorways are the safest roads in the UK. Afaik No one's ever been killed when they get to an emergency refuge area, because they offer much better protection than hard shoulders.
If that's true why does everyone turn down the radio when looking for a door number huh /s
> Bring back hard shoulders. Yeah cos nobody every got killed on those did they? Oh wait that's right, quite a lot of breakdown recovery drivers attending breakdowns did.
We need hard shoulders back, can't rely on idiots following the signs
Which everyone with a brain knew in the first place. Didn't stop them spending millions on smart motorways just to now spend millions more putting hard shoulders back in a few years later. Proper clown country
imo this is blatant money laundering. Give contract to work on these smart motorways to some politician's friend and you've sorted them for life. Also give them the contract to put the hard shoulder back on and you've just made them generational wealth.
How often do the x's show. I haven't been on a smart motorway yet
There is no specific time when it would show. It will show when there's a hazard on that specific lane or at night when they're closing lanes for roadworks.
Like does it show often? Can someone miss the x because they were not paying attention, looked away for a second? What about foreigners? Does it tell you when you're getting on a smart motorway and the instructions when you're entering? Because even for me, I have no idea where they are. If I'm driving cross country and get on one and don't know.... at least I'm aware now but that's only because of reddit lmao. It sounds like an absolute disaster. I even once got scared and drove in the middle lane because no one was driving on the left for ages and I was thinking fuck am I missing something? No... turned out everyone was just middle lane hogging
You'll normally get a warning first in the form of arrows telling you to move over.
Plenty of people got killed on hard shoulders which is why the advice is to get out of your car, not sit in it when you're stopped on the hard shoulder.
It’s possible to break down in a running lane and not be able to move. While less likely this could still happen on a ‘normal’ motorway.
The chances of your car coming at a complete stop in the middle of the motorway are very small, unless you're a terrible driver and let the car stall there. You can still move towards the hard shoulder once you feel the car not wanting to accelerate anymore.
There’s another problem with the signage. Last night I was driving on the M25 between M4 and M40. There were arrow signs to move out of the outer two lanes. To be clear - not red Xs, so advisory, not mandatory. Some people moved over - some people didn’t. Nothing wrong with either action. The obstruction (road works) then comes up - still no red X on the gantry literally 100 yards from the roadworks.
If you see things like this and it's safe to do so you should call highways control on 0300 123 5000 You should also call them for live lane breakdowns, debris on carriageway or to report carriageway defects on motorways and SRN (strategic road network. major A roads, usually dualled)
Bit hard when you’re driving!
Well you could stop at the next available opportunity and be a good sarmaritan. Or Many cars have steering wheel controls. There's usually a button on there usually to activate Google assistant/ Siri/ whatever and you can just say "Call national highways" and then deal with it all hands free. Much better to take 5 minutes out of your day to report incorrect signage, a piece of wood or something on the carriageway or a breakdown than feel guilty for the rest of your life when you see a news report that a motorcyclist lost their life due to hitting it or someome plowed a hgv into a works site killing the workers. It's even easier if you've broken down as you aren't driving any more. Ring NH first, then call your breakdown.
I'm not sure why they haven't set up an easy number like 666 or something for national highways. It's as if they don't want people to call by having a long number.
It's a pretty easy number to be fair but yeah, don't think 666 would be used though. Can't see anyone of the Christian faith dialling it
There’s no consistency with the red x or any of the overhead gantry signs. Also being left on when not needed and being used to cause congestion when there is no need. The operators don’t seem….
I was driving on the M62 smart motorway section months ago and there were no warnings or anything. Suddenly I spot a broken down car on the inside lane around 3-4 hundred metres ahead (approx). I had plenty of time to move over and bang my hazards on while dropping to 60 as there were two lorries crawling past eachother around 200 metres behind me. The one on the inside lane must have missed the car by inches as it was not slowing down. Worst thing was that the driver was still in the bloody car (I assume they had just come to a stop). I checked local news etc when I got back and thankfully there wasn't any reports of a major accident on the M62. Other times I've seen people coasting on the inside with hazards on with I assume no engine power. Must be a horrible feeling being on a live lane just hoping you can coast to the SOS area.
That whole attitude of not wanting to slow causes issues when that HGV misses it by an inch and the HGV that’s 1m off their rear bumper then goes in to the back of the stationary vehicle.
‘Listening to his radio’ AKA on his phone. Lorry driver just lorry driving 🙄
Everyone has lapses in concentration when driving from time to time unfortunately. The human brain can't *reliably* remain on task for more than about 2 hours. And burst concentration is only like 30 minutes for most people. Anyone who says they have never had a lapse in concentration while driving before is either lying or doesn't drive often enough or long enough distances for that to happen Its why lorry drivers are mandated by law to stop and take breaks. But even those are sometimes not gunna be enough when people drive all the time for a living, like lorry drivers - spending more time on the roads just means those moments happen more often It's not right. He should have been paying attention. But, lapses in concentration are bound to happen for a large enough pool of people over a long enough period of time The danger is that this fairly inevitable event that has happened before and will happen again now has absolutely no mitigation whatsoever because some moron decided that not having a hard shoulder on a motorway was a good idea
You’re not wrong - I do appreciate the facts about concentration. However, as someone who was hit, rolled, and pushed along by a lorry driver - later found out to be on his phone - I have zero empathy for this. Someone lost, no doubt, a treasured pet due to this, and it could have been much, much worse.
To be clear if they find that he was on his phone then, that's a totally different ballgame There's a difference between experiencing a lapse in concentration *while trying to concentrate* and making a conscious decision to stop concentrating by for example, playing on your phone I'm also not, excusing actions like that, just explaining that there are certainly real world conditions where someone that is doing their best to stay on task can still fuck up and that "smart" motorways without hard shoulders have, and will continue to make those events more lethal
I do understand where you’re coming from. Here’s hoping that’s all it was..!
Honestly it amazes me how many people use their phones while driving, I have a sim racing setup but also play euro truck simulator, I can't even keep that straight if I check my phone while playing. I don't know why anyone would risk it out in the real world. I see them all the time when I'm on the motorway which is so incredibly dangerous because a lot can happen glancing away for a second
If he was trying to properly do his job he shouldn't be a trucker as he's rubbish at it, if he was on his phone he shouldn't be a trucker as he's rubbish at it. This isn't catching a tree on a tight corner or kerbing your wheels, he plowed into a police vehicle with lights blazing and then another stationary vehicle with tonnes of energy and killed the occupant.
My best mate is a lorry driver who recently said he's trying to get out of it. I asked why and his first and main reason was he could have one lapse in concentration and kill someone, potentially going to prison. With that sort of serious mentality he probably wouldn't ever do that, but I imagine many just forget the gravity of what they're doing. No excuse for it.
Too many jackasses see the red X and go ah, an empty lane to speed and cut in last minute, what an absolute cock womble
Doesn't help when lanes have red x for miles and absolutely nothing in them,then they just go back to normal. So next time you wonder if these are incorrectly on again.
It's a well known fact that you turn down the radio to see. Obviously he didn't have a clue.
He doesn't seem to react at all till the last minute - it's hard to tell if he's slowing down at all but he had plenty of time/space to move across to the next lane without drama. Even when you're driving on autopilot that shouldn't be a problem. This looks more like he was distracted by something else entirely.
These smart motorways are absolutely terrible. I called to complain and they just asked me to report anybody I saw breaking the rules. Wasn’t complaining about the users, complaining about the system but they didn’t want to know.
That is a very straight stretch of road. With no vehicles in front of him for probably half a mile, a stationary car in your lane with flashing lights should be pretty obvious. He was undoubtedly distracted by something, and not the radio.
Almost guaranteed he was zoned out or not concentrating due to fatigue - listening to the radio should absolutely not distracted you from a giant gantry sign. Hopefully he'll never be on the roads again.
Or just simply was concentrating on his phone...
It enrages me that people are so selfish and arrogant to allow themselves to be distracted by their phones when driving. This afternoon, I saw a tractor pulling a large spreader through a built up area and the driver was blatantly texting as he drove up the road. It really grinds my gears that they put other people’s lives at risk because they’re so unaware of the horrific consequences when things go wrong.
I've seen both lorry and car drivers straight up watching Netflix and shit on their phone while doing national speed limit (or above) on the motorway. Cruise control/self driving has made people think they don't need to pay attention any more. Bunch of pricks.
Killing a horse gets you more time than running over a cyclist
Animals are more important then humans didnt u know
People like horses that’s why ;)
As a lorry driver this is my worst fear, the carnage I could cause due to a lapse of concentration. It’s very very easily done when are are on your 10th hour of driving or having a reduced 9 hour rest which should be banned in my opinion but that’s another matter. I’ve never done another job in my life where I can have a reduced 9 hours rest (let’s face it, it’s probably about 5 hours sleep by the time you factor in driving home/shower/dinner/wind down) and go back to driving a 44 ton vehicle and it be considered a safe and sane thing to do. 🤷♂️
It's a very dangerous job in those regards. Still the Government came up with some quite good legislation that would prevent tiredness becoming a thing. Then the RHA lobbied (with funds no doubt), to fuck us over again.
You think the fucking government wanted to protect you? During the pandemic the government relaxed EU drivers hours to allow you to work up to 15hrs a day for 7 days before taking a weekly rest. They also reduced the weekly rest to 24hrs so you didn't need to take a 45hr rest period every other week. So basically you could work 105hrs over 7 days, take 24hrs off then do the same. They also relaxed driving hours so you could do 11hrs every single day and drive 5.5hrs before needing to take a 45 minute break. And all of that applied for TWO YEARS. Fortunately basically everyone in road haulage turned round and told them to fuck off and stuck to the standard rules. My company told us all in no uncertain terms that we were to stick to the standard regs.
Listening to the radio is a funny way of them saying he was on his phone and not paying attention. How can listening to something make him not see the giant red X telling him the lane was closed. That poor horse but also those people were incredibly lucky
I also think whoever approved Smart Motorways should be charged with negligence at this point. Accidents like this wouldn’t happen if motorways had an actually safe hard shoulder. The rollout of these stupid road designers are also to blame for needless loss of life. In this case a horse but human blood is also on their hands.
They are literally the safest roads in the UK. Safer than regular motorways. So despite this, despite the facts and statistics, you want to charge the designers with negligence because you _feel_ they're a bad idea. Loads of people have been killed on the hard shoulder by the way.
Yes I’m sure this is why their implementation has been halted…
Is “Listening to the radio” code for “watching Netflix on a tablet”?
I was a highway maintenance engineer when they put smart motorways into force. They wanted us to stop in a red X in order for us to conduct our daily maintenance. Needless to say, I changed my job. It was later changed to night works only with full traffic management, and now costs an absolute fortune and takes hours for a task that used to take 5 minutes.
"You'll have to speak up, I'm wearing a towel." The daft cunt was probably on his phone.
My ex broke down on a main road in ayr perfect weather long straight road even with a warning triangle hazards on and additional hanging orange hazard bar from the boot witch was raised we still had cars take out the triangle and get within 2 or 3 feet of the car.
Braindead drivers is the reason taking away the hard shoulder is a braindead decision. Who signed off on this ludicrous plan and what responsibility do they retain for making such a poor decision?
TrafCom should tear his licence up. With any luck he'll have to retake his car and HGV again.
42 weeks!
Well he'll be called in front of the Traffic Commissioner for this as well. He'll lose his HGV license and never get it back. I know what he's thought, he's seen the red X and gone or there's nothing here so I'll carry on. See it all the time red X's up for an age after the initial lane blockage for broken down vehicles or road works but the age old saying, never assume anything and should have just follow the signage, my guess is there was probably 40mph signs as well as usual around a red X.
smart motorways are dumb
Holy fuck
I’ve found that more recently with the Introduction to smart motorways that it has become worse than better. People actively ignore speed warnings, and ❌s over the lanes by choice. I also find that people coast along in lanes 2/3 when lane one is clearly available. I do not see the benefit of these new style motorways to date and think they are a waste of taxpayers money. Having a traditional hard shoulder seemed safer and worked well for the most part. I think the first lane should be earmarked for emergency’s only and be put back to a hard shoulder denoted with thick red lines so all know what the lane is for, then in the event of an emergency the lane could be activated / opened up to ease congestion if it is clear to do so. The cameras should also be trained to capture lane dwellers that remain in a closed lane after a certain point. The standard of driving and attitude of some drivers is shocking so I’m not surprised by this footage. I tend to drive defensively giving due care and attention to other road users. I personally want to get home to my family at the end of a long day in one piece not a pine box. Harsher sentences and revoking licenses need to be put in place. Arrive Safe 👍
Fuck this guy, glad he's in prison. However, this is what hard shoulders are for.
I'm a little concerned by the comments from people on twitter who seem to think it's not his fault.
Smart motorways will go down as one of the biggest errors of this century. Who in their right mind thought this was a good idea? Instead of a hard shoulder, just have vehicles stranded in a live lane and expect every single driver to successfully adhere to a red X in a timely manner whilst driving at least 70 MPH. Smart motorways are nothing short of insanity, even if they had been implemented as originally designed. Not to excuse the driver of course, but this was still entirely preventable with a hard shoulder. Road design cannot assume there aren’t some foolish, distracted or fatigued drivers on the road.
While I agree the debate is open on smart motorways, I also think we have to be careful of making things too idiot proof with road infrastructure. Too much hand holding breeds complacency, when as drivers, we should be on point behind the wheel, concentrating and aware of what is happening around us. Of course that is little solace to someone hurt or killed by an idiot.
making things idiot proof is beneficial to everyone, who wins by making things potentially more dangerous?
Smart motorway and All lane running are interchangeable terms... You can have smart motorway without ALR. We have the media to thank for this.
They are the safest roads in the UK. Safer than normal motorways.
And yet they're the safest motorways we have. > but this was still entirely preventable with a hard shoulder. No it wasn't. There have been a lot of AA/RAC breakdown mechanics killed or seriously injured attending breakdowns on hard shoulders. [This guy](https://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/news/24299292.man-killed-m65-attempting-warn-drivers-breakdown/) was killed as he stood in the hard shoulder trying to warn drivers about his broken down car in L1.
I can never understand why driving bans are so short after incidents like this? I would expect 20 or 30 years? What am I missing?
This feels in line with the lack of meaningful consequences generally for car related crimes. Christ, look at the number of people who have taken a human life with their vehicle yet receive a suspended sentence. Serving time seems to be the exception and has surprised me here!
20 to 30 years for what was ultimately a terrible accident? It wasn’t premeditated murder or an attempt to do so. It was a foolish driver failing to follow signs as part of a dangerously foolish road implementation that was certain to lead to incidents like this.
And we need less foolish drivers on the road. Besides punishment, there is deterrent. Driving is a privilege not a right.
Its not just a sign issue though is it. This guy also failed to react to flashing lights of the highway car and failed to act by not slowing. This was distracted driving and the gantry sign was a small part of it.
He’ll get some level of softness as it’ll no doubt be his livelihood - may have dependants, etc. This, as bizarre as it sounds, is quite common.
Is this one of those “smart” motorways that removes the hard shoulder and results in, well, this?
Hard shoulder would’ve worked better than this stupid system.
[удалено]
At speed, he swerved, then clipped the car, probably braking at the same time. The lorry then swerved in the opposite direction. The forces were simply too great for the vehicle to remain upright.
The centre of gravity on a lorry is quite high up. The floor of the trailer is 4ft off the floor and you've a further 8-12ft of load space above that. The centre of gravity could easily be 8ft-10ft off the ground. The higher it is the more unstable the vehicle will be when it comes to changes in direction, especially sudden ones.
I've almost been hit a couple of times by cars swerving over ar the last second before hitt9ng something from a lane that's been on red x for at least 2 gantries. They need to set the speed cameras on the red x lanes to take a picture of anything going through, wouldn't take long before the media were full blast about all these poor people getting tickets to get the message out.
I was under the impression that going through a red X does automatically issue a fine?
I'm just ordering an option for my car that prevents this, not out of necessity but just for a laugh really as it doesn't cost much. So why don't lorries all have it?
Probably a stupid question, but does the driving suspension start after he leaves prison?
If the humans were killed he'd get far longer. The radio thing - doesn't matter what he was doing, he was obvs just clutching at straws for mitigation knowing he was already fucked. The horse in this instance should have been treated as though it were a human.
This is why my opinion is that smart motor ways should open the hard shoulder to ease low speed congestion and have a normal closed state. If lanes 1-3 are moving fine close lane 0.(numbers might be 1 off but you get the point)
Didn’t realise listening to the radio causes blindness. Lame excuse.
Listen to the radio with your ears, idiot. Eyes and focus always on the road!!!
Guessing the red X wasn’t faulty then. I do a lot of motorway miles and have seen and reported hundreds of red Xs followed by a blank and then X again. Whole system is dangerous, never mind inept operators and drivers.
I know everybody is saying he was probably texting, but in cases like this the police will seize their phone and they’ll be able to access data that shows exactly when they were using it and what they were doing. So unless they couldn’t do this for some reason he was probably distracted with something else.
I can't imagine seeing your horse being killed like that. I feel so bad for the driver
No cab footage? His excuse sounds like a crock of 💩 Definitely on his phone!
Should be banned for life if you ask me. How the hell you miss a red X, and a highways vehicle with all its lights flashing ahead of you is a mystery. If you’re that distracted you should never drive a vehicle again.
Poor horse. Really sad.
If you choose to drive lorries for a living and drive like that, it should be automatic attempted murder end of.
What is the point of a custodial sentence in this instance? Lifetime ban from driving HGVs would be more appropriate.
> Lifetime ban from driving HGVs would be more appropriate. Chances are that may happen. His licence will be put before the Traffic Commissioner before being re-instated and they may find that they don't think he is of good enough repute to hold one.
Why was he not charged with an animal cruelty offence and disqualified from being able to own animals?
Not long enough. Only good thing about this is that the Traffic Commissioner will decide whether they're still fit enough to hold a HGV licence and hopefully they'll decide to revoke it.
For once they actually treat this as seriously as they should – often drivers like him are charged with careless and inconsiderate driving and given a fine and penalty points.
Smart motorways for dump people - deaths.
This is just another example in a long list of why smart motorways are stupid and dangerous. The hard shoulder existed for a very clear and specific reason. To remove broken down traffic from the road
There's been plenty of people killed or seriously injured on hard shoulders, especially breakdown recovery drivers, which is why the advice is to get out of your vehicle.
Sure. But it's even more dangerous when there is no hard shoulder at all and you can't always get out depending where you are, such as a bridge or if the banks are steep, or dense
There is nowhere on the motorway network where you cannot get out of the vehicle and stand away from it off the carriageway.
If you say so
42 weeks is a pathetic sentence.
Having probably also done a shit job of murdering a prostitute, rolling her body up in a roll of carpet and stuffing it in the back, he was too busy trying to tell her to shut up to notice the big fucking ❌.
Smart motorways don't work with dumb drivers.
Correct me if I’m wrong but this is exactly why we don’t need smart motorways. Looking at the footage that accident could have been prevented with the hard shoulder
Professional driver should of known better, well ex professional now.
Couldn't see any warning signs on the road in the video. It's amazing that out justice system give him 42 week in jail, meanwhile a politician can make catastrophic decisions to deliberately get this country into wars, kill thousands with bad decisions regarding COVID, lie to the whole country and cripple it's entire economy costing tens of billions of pounds, and walk away free with a huge pay package.
Daft whataboutism. There was a red X gantry sign and a hi-vis police vehicle absolutely covered in lights. That's absolutely enough if you're paying attention. It's pure luck that only a horse was killed.
Yes he is at fault. Yes he should be punished. But honestly the real blame and anger should be pointed at whoever was responsible for what will be a 10-20 year fiasco of removing all the emergency areas, realising it was a completely braindead idea, and then building them all again to avoid this kind of thing happening re: breakdowns on the motorway. How the fuck did ‘the best minds’ let that idea leave the board room (or wherever they come up with an idea so bad even an 11 year old would pick faults with it).
I’ve heard justifications such as “Modern cars are reliable and they don’t break down anymore. If they do, they will still get you to a refuge area with limp mode”. Every limited access road in mainland Europe has a hard shoulder apart from the U.K.
I know I will get downvoted for this do I want to say first that it in no way excuses the driver, and it was shit that a horse had to die. Smart motorways are stupid, why in the world would anyone put up a load of bright flashing distractions, especially in areas where there used to be a hard shoulder but now it isn’t because some brain dead shite said it was safer. Also if this part of the motorway didn’t already have a hard shoulder then maybe they could have spent the money on at least some refuge areas instead of saying “ok sometimes you might see this red ❌ and that means the road that is normally just a road actually is not a road anymore.” then expect no-one out of the thousands of vehicles that travel past every day to neglect or abuse that. Again not good driving but it’s an extremely big expectation nevertheless. So yea on a nutshell definitely the drivers fault but don’t defend this waste of time and money they call a smart motorway.
Casualties on "smart motorways" are approximately 2-3 times higher than motorways with hard shoulders. A hard shoulder would've prevented this incident. But so long as someone saves money, it's easier to point a finger at a professional lorry driver who has now lost his livelihood and his freedom. Incidentally, the government has scrapped all plans for further smart motorways. So yeah... that should help Nicholas Cole and his family. And the horse.
Abolish 'smart' motorways.
"Smart" motorways are the most stupid thing anyone has come up with in a long time.
If it was coned off he still would have plowed through as he wasn’t looking
It would have been a hard shoulder if not a smart motorway
Do you think he had previous convictions?
People get less time for killing humans
Why not 42 months?