Parking on a motorway hard shoulder

[MarillionFan]

What if it's in force and an accident happens when the road is full... seems unlikely everyone will be able to filter back in to the other lanes.

The big roads here seem to have emergency lanes on both sides of each carriageway, i.e. inside & outside. But then if the road is 6 lanes either way, why not...

WHS

Hard-shoulder driving lies ahead for motorways in effort to reduce congestion

I remember that parts of the M1 have been allowed to use the hardshoulder. So if you were driving and an accidnt occurs you're going to get stuck on the hardshoulder. In addition in the many times I have seen an accident and been stuck in traffic the hardshoulder has remained free apart from a time into London where the hard shoulder was being used for traffic.

I think this thread is bollocks.

[NickFitz]

You can just say you don't know, it would have been less typing.

Or I could JFGI - oh, hang on, I did:

The hard shoulder will only be a running lane in heavy traffic, but this is the most likely time for accidents to occur. How will emergency services reach an accident with no hard shoulder?

The use of the hard shoulder will only be required prior to the onset of congestion. When the hard shoulder is opened the traffic speeds will have dropped to below 50mph. It is therefore envisaged that if an accident does occur it is likely to be less severe in nature and should not require the attendance of the emergency services.

Should the Emergency services be required to attend, the signs and signals will be set to close the affected lanes and divert traffic out of them. This should free up a lane to allow the emergency service vehicles clear access to the incident.

Being able to open separate sections of the hard shoulder also provides the ability to clear the traffic quickly ahead of any incident, thus allowing the filtering of traffic to proceed quickly.

- CBRD » In Depth » Active Traffic Management

[d000hg]

When the hard shoulder is opened the traffic speeds will have dropped to below 50mph. It is therefore envisaged that if an accident does occur it is likely to be less severe in nature and should not require the attendance of the emergency services.

That's a load of crap. For a start <50mph means the average speed. And you can still have a good accident at that speed.

Should the Emergency services be required to attend, the signs and signals will be set to close the affected lanes and divert traffic out of them. This should free up a lane to allow the emergency service vehicles clear access to the incident.

When the roads are chockablock? Good luck.

You would have thought that, with all those experts in traffic management working for years on this scheme, they would have realised that. The fact that they've never even suspected this obvious failing during several years of operating the scheme here and abroad shows what a bunch of incompetent charlatans they are. You should write to them explaining why this system that appears on the surface to be working very well is in fact fundamentally flawed

Still so confident in how smart our public sector are? Obviously they have shown great expertise in running the rest of the country.