400 more miles of the hard shoulder to be removed.
 

I have never been allowed to drive for medical reasons, but am intrigued as to what drivers think of this idea.

It will ease the congested roads, but what are people supposed to do in an emergency?

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/u...oved-5d02t3bbj

The speed limit whilst going past roadworks is to also be increased.

The police are unhappy because they have nowhere to pull over dangerous drivers:

https://www.thesun.co.uk/motors/8309...hard-shoulder/

It does rather seem that safety is being compromised in order to accommodate the amount of cars now on the road and could undermine the current efforts to cut car pollution.

What do those who do drive think to this idea?

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

Well considering the title of the article is

‘Unsafe’ hard shoulders to be removed

So its not just being removed for the sake of it, but due to safety concerns.

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

Another Richard "mountain out of a molehill" thread.

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

They are said to be dangerous because people end up getting shunted on them, which could be alleviated by clamping down on those stopping for non emergencies.

Even with the fact that some people can still end up being shunted, I think that this is the lesser of two evils. If someone is on the motorway and has e.g. a heart attack, a hard shoulder (despite there being a chance of being shuntered) is still safer than remaining on the motorway for everyone concerned.

If there had been incidents of the fire service dropping people whilst rescuing them from burning buildings, it would be like saying that they will no longer rescue them because it's unsafe!

I suspect that the use of terminology like 'dangerous' and 'digital motorway are spin to make it sound like an improvement that they are being taken away.

---------- Post added at 16:45 ---------- Previous post was at 16:42 ----------

It's not, this has been going on for some time and the article concerns a further 400 miles of hard shoulder that is to be removed.

Are you a driver? If so, what do you think about this?

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

Not being a driver myself how is getting rid of the hard shoulder going to help emergency vehicles , etc , etc , etc?.

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

They have emergency lay-bys in the existing roads where this is in place already, and they will put more of these in.

From the OP’s Times link

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

Thanks for that Hugh as reading up a bit about it they also intend to shorten the distance between each emergency lay-bys in future from 1.5 miles to one mile which has to be a good thing.

https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news...hire-1-8970286

https://www.rac.co.uk/drive/news/mot...art-motorways/

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

I've always found these to be dangerous. One minute its an extra lane and then the next its closed again. Miss it and you could plough into a broken down car.


This will annoy those that want to save the envionment and all that but the truth is there are ten times more cars on the roads these days and for some roads, such as the M25 we should really have an extra few lanes.
Look at how many they have in the U.S. That seems to work.

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

Still isn't going to help emergency vehicles get to accidents quickly. I think less cars might be the answer....

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

H'mmm! And how do you propose that we can get to a position whereby we have fewer cars on the road, Mr K?

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

Well Mr K that ain't going to happen in a month of Sunday's unless you have some great idea which we have not heard of yet.

---------- Post added at 10:18 ---------- Previous post was at 10:16 ----------

Especially on those motorways when it is basically bumper to bumper miles on end at busy times.

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

Oh I have great ideas Den , making all public transport free, tripling tax on private transport (with exceptions for the disabled), max of one car per household. No politician is brave enough to make the big decisions to tackle congestion/climate change.

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

Politicians are not going to make tough decisions that will lose them core voters Mr K are they...

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

No, so maybe us the 'core voters' are to blame.....

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

Most "core voters" will vote for whatever party protects their pocket.