Much controversy here in the UK over the development of 'smart' motorways, which are basically ones where the inside lane ~ once reserved exclusively for breakdown ~ has been opened up for use. Instead, every so often there is a lay-by to pull into instead.
I've a lot of sympathy for this as I always considered that inside lane could be used in this way now that cars are altogether smarter and less prone to breakdown. The problem is, people are altogether less smart than they were in the days tyres blew, fan-belts broke and electrical points became corroded by sparking.
Now instead people sit in whichever lane at point of stoppage like zombies, unable to fix anything and rarely if ever assisted by anyone else now that we live on-screen lives... and as a result die in the inevitable shunts due to being rear-ended by drivers messaging at 80 m.p.h.
My favourite unintended consequence though is the bridge just south of Sandbach services southbound on the M6; a place I intend to organise a trip to should your numbers warrant it.
For driving back northbound some years ago at around 02:00 a.m. on a Saturday morning I was intrigued to see a truck separated from its trailer, whose contents of fruit and veg were spilled over a half-mile of carriageway. This closed it for the next six hours, whilst Police made a reality TV program... meaning people who'd set off to fly from Gatwick thinking that they were ever-so-clever, missed it instead.
Reason being, when that stanchion supporting the bridge was built, it was separated from the roadway by a 'hard-shoulder' width, whereas now it's adjacent. This means foreign truckers (as they all are at 02:00 a.m. except for muggins), understandably half-asleep, swerve to avoid a drift toward the edge: and tho' the cab makes it, the front of the trailer goes its separate ways.
This I think you will agree, is obvious from a close-up of the edge of that concrete casting? Funny thing is, they only added the stripes about four years later and after the accident had been repeated over and again ~ the edge of the bridge fading-to-black at night-time.
So we've smart motorways in the UK, but nobody smart with a tin of white paint.
Ed. The author has since been jailed for pretending this came from his dash-cam.
