Government recommendation is for driver and any passengers to stay in your broken down vehicle stationary sitting in the live lane....as you can't exit the vehicle on passenger side (parked up against the barrier) or the drivers side with high speed traffic passing to the side....and bearing down on you from the rear!
Stopping on a live motorway lane and staying sat in the car waiting for rescue, even in good weather and in daylight is a terrifying experience...waiting for the inevitable impact from behind. (watch the incidents shown on the BBC programme happen as drivers are urgently calling for help, some with fatal end results and injury as the phone goes dead). At least on the old hard shoulder you have some space to get yourself and others out the car and stand behind the barrier until help arrives which was always recommended. Hazard lights help but won't save you and in some cases the stationary vehicle is obscured by lorries until the last moment, from other car drivers approaching at speed, again watch the programme, it is an eye opener.
Also remember in a classic vehicle you are far more likely to break down and have minimal crash protection against any impact from behind. Police recommend driving to a safe place even if a tyre is flat and flapping around.....a car in the programme is seen driving on his wheel rim or brake disc to escape the danger.
UK's smart motorways to be reviewed after huge rise in near-misses
BBC Panorama study shows increase on M25 from 72 to 1,485 in five years since conversion
"A freedom of information request by the BBC Panorama programme, (broadcast on Monday night), found that in five years before one section of the M25 was converted into a smart motorway there were just 72 near-misses. In the five years after conversion, there were 1,485 such dangerous incidents. Panorama’s investigation also revealed that one of the electronic warning signs was out of action for 336 days. The government is understood to be considering introducing more radar detection systems to identify vehicles broken down on the hard shoulder, as well as building more emergency lay-bys. Research by the AA suggests it takes an average of 17 minutes for highway authorities to spot a stopped vehicle, and then another 17 minutes for emergency vehicles to reach the scene. “You spend an average of more than half an hour sitting there in a broken-down vehicle praying,” said the AA.
The scheme was rolled out on the back of trials on the M42 near Birmingham, but that the same level of protection had not been replicated elsewhere – particularly the distance between emergency refuge areas, where vehicles in distress can stop in the absence of a hard shoulder. On the M42 pilot, the areas were 500-600 metres apart, compared with 2,500 metres on other smart motorways.
https://www.theguard...-in-near-misses
"Police have said they were misled over the dangers of smart motorways as the new roads were branded a “death trap”. A senior policing leader yesterday accused Highways England of irresponsibly pushing through the controversial project linked to 38 deaths. It came after a damning report by a group of MPs concluded that the “shocking and careless” rollout of the scheme had cost lives. The transport agency is already facing a criminal investigation after the widow of a motorist killed on a smart motorway made formal allegations of corporate manslaughter. Calls grew yesterday for ministers to halt the scheme, which converts the hard shoulder into a ‘live lane’ to ease congestion."
Edited by mab01uk, 29 January 2020 - 01:06 PM.