Opening The Hard Shoulder???

[Walesy 0]

Just seen this and thought it was interesting.

 

Good idea?

[mrbeige 0]

Don't think it is, I can see people getting confused by it. Individuals are intelligent, but people are stupid, and can see it all going wrong

[Henny 0]

Works well in Germany and several other European countries....

 

Problem is that we have too many lane hoggers in this country already and they won't want to drive on the hard shoulder if it means not being in the middle lane anymore... :roll:

[ZippyVR6 0]

Great idea but what about all the debris that gets swept onto the hard shoulder?

 

And what happens when you break down?

[gsbellew 0]

What happens when the emergency services need to get through in rush hour traffic too?

 

Currently the hard shoulder is available for them or for others to pull out of their way into.

[Jim 1]

I agree.. the emergency services have a hard enough time as it is. Think this is asking for trouble!

[Kevin Bacon 5]

They're going to build 'refuges' every 500 metres for breakdowns.

 

Still doesn't help the emergency services though.

 

I kind of see the value in it when really congested, but as Henny and Mr Tan point out, people are the problem. Not even an 8 lane motorway would correct the selfish UK driving style. The mindset needs changing, aswell as the roads and also the Goverment. The Ministry of transport simply didn't do the maths......and it's really elementary. No new greensite builds + no new roads + saturation of the market with cheap, throw away cars + inadequate public transport + multicar families = Road infrastructure meltdown.

 

It's like IBM and their 640K base memory limit...."no one will ever need more ram than that". Yeah....and no one will ever need more roads than the ones built in the 60s and 70s either I suppose :roll:

 

It's just the f'in government trying to weedle out of their responsibilities - as cheaply as possible because they've run up so much debt on their spin campaigns, tw@ts :-)

[Ryan S 0]

Pointless - as mentioned above - people fail to use lanes 1 & 2 if there are 4 or 5 lanes available. Motorway skills should be taught as part of a M-way test - before you can use 'em.

[steve_16v 0]

Can't see it making that much difference to be honest, I went up to Lancashire this weekend and spent feckin hours on the b*strd M6 both ways, the sections where it becomes 4 lanes wide were just as slow as the 3 lane sections, exept there was more space in the inside lane :roll:

 

Incidentally my old man is a civil engineer and says the department of transport have always known the M6 wouldn't be adequate for the amount of predicted traffic, and there have been plans for another motorway to run alongide the M6 since the 1960's and also plans for the M6 to be extended to 6 or 8 lanes wide each way. Unfortunately they deemed both plans to be too expensive so we're stuck with a woefully inadequate motorway.

[Mr Sands 0]

Potentially disastrous move: seems to me you're balancing a temporary fix to congestion against people's lives.

 

The only times when you will need to open the hard shoulder will be during rush hour, so you will ensure that you have four gridlocked lanes rather than three. It's at best a temporary fix, since any new lanes added to motorways will eventually fill with traffic.

 

Meantime, this now totally gridlocked motorway that you've created will render it impossible for emergency services to get to the top of the queue in the event of an accident.

 

Jim's got it totally right. The hard shoulder is there for emergency, either breakdown or fire engine or ambulance transit.

 

Given that eventually the traffic will just end up stationary again anyway, is this government prepared to write off the lives of people involved in pile-ups who will not get the life-saving attention they need in time?

[gaz the geezer 0]

a deffo no no imo :nono:

[bristolbaron 10]

They're going to build 'refuges' every 500 metres for breakdowns.

 

Still doesn't help the emergency services though.

 

I kind of see the value in it when really congested, but as Henny and Mr Tan point out, people are the problem. Not even an 8 lane motorway would correct the selfish UK driving style. The mindset needs changing, aswell as the roads and also the Goverment. The Ministry of transport simply didn't do the maths......and it's really elementary. No new greensite builds + no new roads + saturation of the market with cheap, throw away cars + inadequate public transport + multicar families = Road infrastructure meltdown.

 

It's like IBM and their 640K base memory limit...."no one will ever need more ram than that". Yeah....and no one will ever need more roads than the ones built in the 60s and 70s either I suppose :roll:

 

It's just the f'in government trying to weedle out of their responsibilities - as cheaply as possible because they've run up so much debt on their spin campaigns, tw@ts :-)

 

saved me writing basically the same thing! :lol:

[_Monkey 0]

Well they're gonna try it out in Birmingham first, so with any luck, they'll see it doesn't work there and scrap the idea.

[godskitchen 0]

It's like IBM and their 640K base memory limit...."no one will ever need more ram than that". Yeah....and no one will ever need more roads than the ones built in the 60s and 70s either I suppose :roll:

 

The Irish telecoms company Eircom said and i quote "We will not be upgrading out exchanges for broadband, Ireland will never need broadband" and his is only a few years ago!

 

4th lane is a no no!

[mattnorgrove 0]

Definitely not, IMHO there will never be a complete fix to the situation. Too many cheap cars flooding the market for the civil engineers to keep up. Assuming they do decide to ever do anything about the state of the traffic.