New UK driving rule makes smart motorways 'even more dangerous'

Drivers have been warned over a new rule making smart motorways "even more dangerous". A motoring expert on YouTube, Ashley Neal, explained: "This is possibly one of the most dangerous policy changes I've ever heard of. National Highways need to seriously have a rethink in my opinion."

In the clip, Ashley explained: "Oour road network motorways are the safest roads miles mile for mile but when you break down on a motorway - on this type of motorway (the ones with a hard shoulder) it's actually relatively straightforward to then match your speed to that of the traffic that you're getting into.

"The whole idea when you're on a motorway like this is to build up your speed on the hard shoulder until you can fit in no problems. Luckily I haven't had to do it much over the last last 25 years but there was actually a situation a little bit further up here quite recently.

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"My bike that I was carrying on my bike rack came loose so I got out reattached the bike because I thought that was the safer option and then I was able to rejoin now to merge safely look for the biggest possible gap that you can find. Then build your speed up on a hard shoulder until you can fit in comfortably with the traffic on the motorway."

He warned: "But there is an issue with rejoining when you're on a smart motorway. You break down and you're able to use um one of the layby, you used to be able to call the Highways Agency on one of the SOS phones and what used to happen is they used to close the lane that you were trying to join by using a red X and then that advise you you can join safely.

"But this policy has recently changed and it was highlighted because one of my viewers and subscribers um sent me a little note about a video by a recovery driver. He had an incident where he was recovering a vehicle that was broken down and he was trying to rejoinso he got on the SOS phone to the Agency.

"Now what they do is they just put a 'move right arrow' and wil only use a red X if people aren't compliant with the move. In this next little bit of footage that you see from Greg's video, you can see that even though they say this is policy it's not exactly how things are being worked."

He continued: "I personally think that this change in policy is the single most stupid thing I've heard in many years, and I have to bring this to people's attention as you are being put at risk by a policy that I literally don't understand, I do not see the benefit of it. Is it so they do not have to deploy a traffic officer to that particular area? I don't know, I've got no idea why they've done it. If you've broken down on a smart motorway, you've got to be super careful because you're not going to have that lane shut."