Re: 400 more miles of the hard shoulder to be removed.
 

Many of the bus companies in England and Wales (but not London) were government run under the auspices of the National Bus Company between 1969 and 1988.. Despite car ownership being very much lower in those days so far more people were dependent on buses, very very few of those companies made a profit, hampered by the cost of the bureaucracy.
These days, most bus services outside London are run at a profit by Stagecoach, First, Arriva, Go Ahead and lots of well run smaller companies, despite the added costs associated with EU driving regulations, adaptions for the disabled, clean exhaust laws, higher expectations of passengers etc etc. Gone are the days of the boneshaker belching out black smoke that many of us travelled on to school.
The billions of annual subsidy required in London is an indication of what might happen if offices are set up full of people with the intention of regulating the bus services. This is already proposed for the larger conurbations.

Re: 400 more miles of the hard shoulder to be removed.
 

Non paywall linkI suspect that the widow of a man who is to sue Highways England for corporate manslaughter, who lost her husband since you made this comment, would disagree with you:

https://inews.co.uk/news/uk/drivers-...torway-deaths/

Re: 400 more miles of the hard shoulder to be removed.
 

Hard shoulders don't make much of a difference.
Link
After a minor collision, there was no pressing need to stop on a live lane of any sort. Would you do it on any other busy road?
From your link

Re: 400 more miles of the hard shoulder to be removed.
 

On a smart motorway with no hard shoulder, there is supposed to be real-time monitoring of traffic movement so assistance can be dispatched rapidly if a running lane becomes blocked by an accident. I’m curious whether there’s a target response time and how often it is missed. I’m also curious as to what vehicle occupants should do; the current advice is to leave a car on the hard shoulder and get a comfortable distance from it, the other side of a crash barrier if there is one, or up the embankment. So what do you do if you break down or are in a collision in a live running lane on a smart motorway?

Re: 400 more miles of the hard shoulder to be removed.
 

No doubt she will but I will await the result of the courts decision before commenting further.

Re: 400 more miles of the hard shoulder to be removed.
 

Well, as PIP says, let's wait until the courts make a decision as to who or what was at fault.

Re: 400 more miles of the hard shoulder to be removed.
 

Most of the M1 around here has been without a hard shoulder for years now - without any fuss, or the world ending.

As they say "much ado about nothing"

Re: 400 more miles of the hard shoulder to be removed.
 

This made the news last night. They said that there had been four deaths on this stretch of road thus far since the hard shoulder was removed and showed a historic interview with the chief of police for this area, who predicted accidents/fatalities.

They also showed where the latest death took place. Next to what was the hard shoulder, there is a grass verge, I think it would have been sensible for them to move onto this rather than exchange details in a live motorway lane.