Ah, haven't been down the M3 for years, has it had the not cheap and cheerful 'smart motorway' lash up?, only some pen pusher or half baked politician could have thought live hard shoulder running would be a good wheeze.

Safer bet for breaking down on than elevated motorway sections i suppose, unless you happened to have packed a parachute for such an event, quite where are you supposed to hide.

Now it's been upgraded how do backroomers feel about the long stretches without a hard shoulder? Imagine a foggy winter morning and the car breaks down, you can only pull in the side, get out asap and seek somewhere safe. Meanwhile your car sits there awaiting the first driver who dosen't see it. Will the AA/Rac etc want to put their patrols in obvious danger?

Presumably, that's been done under a "smart" system of gantries with lane restriction display possibility.

Going back (quite a way) the M25 trial established that variable speed limits could actually increase average speeds and reduce accidents - the next trial was the M42 smart system which included hard-shoulder running at peak times, it too showed that average speeds increase and accident rates reduced. That smart system has been rolled out on many congested UK motorways.

The problem with managed motorways is they're dependent on the level of the staffing in their control rooms.

I don't like it and I don't like it when hardshoulders are used as running lanes during busy times either.

The idea of having a road with a 70MPH speed limit and no safe place to stop is not something that instills confidence, especially after a truck ran into a parked car on the A12 and turned over a few years back.

The last time I went on the M3 it still had that 50mph speed restriction from the M25 out towards Camberly.

Edited by Wackyracer on 19/08/2017 at 21:11

I was on the M3 last month, returned home via the A3, two reasons, firstly because I detest the 50mph zone, to have such a long section and for so many years is a national discrace and the people responsible should have been sacked years ago, and secondly because travelliing via the A3 reduced my journey on the M25, which is always a good thing to do (even though it meant a longer journey on the M27).

Will be there in September, back to Southampton, considering avoiding the M3 both ways.

As for question posed by barney100, all the motorways that have been converted to use the hard shoulder as a running lane are inherently more dangeous as a result. Although the reason may be sound, the application is a madness that one day will cost lives. To add insult there is a lack of instruction on what to do in the event of breakdown - hazard lights on, all other lights off (so there is less chance of being mistaken by approaching traffic as a vehicle that is being driven). I'd like to think there are additional call points and the road is being watched by CCTV operators more closely (just how many miles can one operator safely watch?) but I'm not sure.

Also, these roads have an enchanced level of speed control, including the newer roadside cameras (which at first were not painted yellow) that can monitor all lanes at once.