David Armstrong has departed us : https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/62632003 Quite a long career methinks in the top flight. Thinking back to my youth and his time playing, I immediately recall the Back to the future line : Jesus, didn't he ever have hair !!?? :
I worked with him 30 years ago when we both worked in the old Football in the Community Scheme. He was a big help and encouragement to me in what was my first real involvement in football.
I remember being a small kid and my cousin had a Panini stickers book. He was the one player he didn’t get!
Completely unrelated to football but one of the things that annoys me in my advancing years is the so-called "smart" motorways. My observation is not based on a great sample (I think on four or five journeys) but I refer to the London end of the M4, the smart motorway bit, the bit that has caused so much inconvenience with speed restrictions over huge areas during it's massively long construction time, and complete closure on weekends. It seems to me that since they are sort of finished (I think), the areas which have had the most recent attention are now labelled "variable speed limit", but are not varied at all. They are stuck at 60mph. So the newest, most high tech motorway in the country has an effective speed limit less than comparable roads everywhere else. Wondering why this is. My thoughts include "I've got technology so I'm going to use it", in other words they've put up all these new gantrys which can display different speeds so they're using them in some kind of controlling / power thing. A more cynical version of me thinks that if you get fewer accidents at 60mph than 70mph, if you limit smart motorways to 60 for some time, you can then publish stats showing how much safer smart motorways are. But of course they are safer for different reasons than they claim! Whatever the reason, the upshot is that under completely normal road conditions on Sunday evening, if probably less dense traffic than usual, I found myself driving for miles on a four lane motorway at 60mph.
Removing the hard shoulder also seems to be a very dangerous option. It is bad enough being on the hard shoulder with huge lorries thundering past but when you know they are are coming on the same lane that you are stopped on that's really scary. The first lorry sees you but it's the following vehicles that don't until the last seconds. It seems like madness to create such risks just to save minutes on journeys.
60mph also means you are mixed with the trucks and you cannot get away from them. The big danger for cars on a motorway is colliding with a truck. We know who wins. We see how one truck doing 59.7 mph gets overtaken by another doing 60.1 mph. If you are the car restricted to 60mph amongst a bunch of trucks in the rain. Good luck!
If I was a cynic I'd suggest that putting a lower speed limit on an otherwise quiet motorway also increases the possibility of catching folk who forget and let their speed go back up to 70...££££ increase in tickets!
Road vehicle networks have a basis in fluid dynamics. In particular the concepts of "streamline" and "turbulent" flow. So within any given lane of a road, if all the vehicles are holding to the same speeds, and keeping the same safe distances apart, then you have "streamline" flow. When you have vehicles of different speeds in one lane, or crossing between lanes (junction exiting etc) , then you get "turbulent" flow. So the "smart" part of the whole thing is for the network to set the appropriate speeds on road sections in a timely dynamic manner to keep : - strreamlining high - turbulence as low as possible at junction points That would suggest that vehicles themselves have to have forward/backward distance ranging, and network-configurable max speeds.
Unless they have changed the rules since I got my CPC the trucks should only be doing a maximum of 90 kmh(56 mph approx) , but I understand and agree with your main point.
I think the theory is that a lot of accidents are caused by congestion when people fail to stop as they approach queues. Since using the hard shoulder as a running lane increases throughput it should reduce accidents caused by congestion. It shouldn't alter the danger of stopping due to a breakdown since a smart motorway has cameras and the operators can close the inside lane if anyone has broken down in it. The problem is that individuals can't see the benefits from the reduction in accidents but can see the vehicle stopped in lane one so we all jump to the wrong conclusion.
There have already been deaths on the 'hard shoulder' Life becomes the responsibility of an 'operator' plus how many times do drivers ignore the red X until they run out of road? I see that all the time. At night all through the night you are happy to rely on others to keep you safe? I'm not, I have driven millions of miles having averaged 25,000 miles per annum for over 50 years and that experience tells me not to rely on others. The standard of driving has fallen as the cars have become faster and safer so the car bales people out on many occasions, but being stationary and hit by a 60mph truck is not survivable. No doubt soon cars will drive themselves and no humans will be involved then smart motorways could be safer but right now they are not for me. Reducing tail end shunts is good for the services and insurance companies but if that is at the expense of fatal crashes then its wrong headed IMO.
2 yrs ago I was on the M25 when the cambelt snapped on my company vehicle ,I was in the 3rd lane of 4 and luckily made it to the 1st lane and rammed it up onto the grass verge, I got out of the Near side and up the embankment, while calling my company central control to report the breakdown a hired 7.5 ton vehicle ripped off the osf door and wing without stopping, these so called smart motorways are death traps , even a normal motorway the hard shoulder is not a good place to be when broken down
It's not unusual to see people on their mobiles while driving and when what there driving is a 50ton truck the potential consequences are disastrous.
Smart motorways won’t work as long as there is dumb people. Unfortunately far too many dumb people on the roads
1. Hence the notion to take the human aspect out of as much of it is economically/practically viable. 2. You have "operand conditioning" as a potential modifier of behaviour (insurance costs etc) .
Don't worry, Tesla are working hard to make cars dumber than the people driving them, given their habits of spearing off at 90 degree angles at t-junctions and not stopping for anybody less than 4ft tall ...wait, as they're driven by Muskovites, make that cars as dumb as the people driving them
Talking of Tesla-related accidents....although apparently stationary at the time! How the **** did anyone get out of this alive? The Range Rover looks like it's just come out of a crusher! https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/a40-range-rover-tesla-crash/
