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More than 1,000 motorists a week are being caught speeding on the UK's smart motorways, police figures suggest.
Last year, 52,516 fixed penalties were issued on 11 smart sections, including on stretches of the M1, M25 and M6.
This compared to 2,023 on the same stretches in 2010-11, before they were upgraded to smart motorways - which use the hard shoulder and variable speed limits to control traffic flow.
The government says they are used to improve capacity, not generate revenue.
Smart motorways are operated by Highways England, which uses overhead gantries - also containing speed cameras - to direct traffic into open lanes and change speed limits depending on the volume of traffic.
Ticket revenue has increased tenfold over 5 years. Have British drivers experienced the "improved capacity" that the government uses to justify the smart highways?
(Score: 2) by art guerrilla on Tuesday November 08 2016, @12:15PM
yes, THANK YOU for that last bit... i am constantly agog at the stupid and counterproductive measures drivers take to 'save' a second here or there... here are some of my other driving bugaboos:
1. you are cruising a four-lane highway that has little/no traffic to speak of, a ahead is a cluster of 2-3 cars going the speed limit (or lower) in the right lane, i -going 5-10 above the speed limit- approach from behind for 5 minutes on the open highway, NO WAY they don't see me, they have all the time in the world to pass the other cars in the right lane, BUT, they wait until i am JUST ABOUT to pass that 2-3 car cluster, AND THEN they decide it would be a great idea to pull out into the left lane and pass the people they have been riding behind for the last 20 minutes, and to do so only .1 MPH above the slower cars' cruising speed...
IF i had my hood-mounted RPG in place, they would get a fucking rocket up the tailpipe... I HATE YOU PEOPLE ! ! !
2. morons who you are behind at a left turn light, and instead of turning left when it is green, they are precious and special people who take up the WHOLE GREEN LIGHT WAITING to make a u-turn instead of doing a left and a left to get where they are going... selfish pricks, EVERYONE ELSE needs to make a left turn, and YOU waste the WHOLE left turn cycle waiting to do your u-turn... fuck you too...
3. people who are too important to use turn signals ? yeah, i hate those fuckers too...
4. told a story about some rural driving experiences, and one particularly retarded soylentil was talking about how with the early morning glare on the road, it was just too dangerous to drive under those conditions, blah blah blah... what, are you two years old ? ? ? so there is glare on the road and it is temporarily impossible to see 100% clear, so i stop the car and push it for a hundred yards until i am past that sunny spot ? i call my boss and say i can't come to work until the sun is in a safe position ? i just fucking stop in the middle of the road and get rear-ended ? i only drive at night ?
yeah, right, and i bet you do a 10 point safety check EVERY TIME you get in your big wheel, amirite ? ? ?
5. similarly, had some retarded crackers who parked next to a stop sign to drop off their fat, ugly, stupid yard apes, THEN another car would park next to them going the other way, and sit and chat about their fat, ugly, stupid yard apes... oh, until i had to go around them and a left-turning car almost smashed into me because of THEIR STUPIDITY... oddly enough, since that little incident, they have magically found the other ACRES of suitable areas OUT OF THE WAY to park with their fat, ugly, stupid yard apes waiting for the bus...
um, was it too fucking much to ask that you actually THINK and CONSIDER the implications of the stupid shit you fucking 'tards were doing ? ? ?
evidently it is...
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday November 08 2016, @02:39PM
2. morons who you are behind at a left turn light, and instead of turning left when it is green, they are precious and special people who take up the WHOLE GREEN LIGHT WAITING to make a u-turn instead of doing a left and a left to get where they are going... selfish pricks, EVERYONE ELSE needs to make a left turn, and YOU waste the WHOLE left turn cycle waiting to do your u-turn... fuck you too...
I live on a street that heads all the way to downtown and it's one of those fun ones with 2 lanes either direction, so you're constantly rolling the dice on which lane to be in to try to avoid getting stuck behind people backed up waiting to turn. It's kind of ridiculous how many people want to make left turns during rush hour :P
Also fun when you're at a stoplight in that situation and they don't bother to put on their turn signal until the light turns green. I'm deciding which lane to be in on the assumption that you're not turning like you say. Ha, psych!
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"