“Today, 17th August 2020, my car broke down of the M5 north of Bristol and stopped in the live inside lane. I had to get out very fast and call the Police on 999 whilst frantically trying to wave at oncoming traffic to prevent an accident. There were 2 near misses. The Highways Agency turned up 15-20 minutes later and the inside lane that was being obstructed by my immobile car was closed, but by no means immediately. This was an outrageously dangerous situation for me and for other road users. I have a disabled son. He wasn’t with me. If he had been I hate to think what might have happened. There’s no way he could have climbed over the barrier off the motorway lane.
To add insult to injury I was informed by the Highways Agency that my car would be “statutorily recovered” to the nearest service area a few miles away at a cost to me of £150, which is excessive because it was in a “dangerous location”. If there had been a hard shoulder, none of this would have happened. The recovery driver told me that most people whose vehicles are “statutorily recovered” don’t have the £150 so their vehicles are impounded and they are charged an excessive daily fee for this (remember they also have to pay the recovery cost, and the cost of repairing their vehicles). The driver also said that the recovery company relies on the fact that most/many can’t pay in order to earn more money and that he couldn’t take me and my car home even though he was going to a job 20 miles from where I live because the company wouldn’t allow it and I’d have to wait, possibly until the following day, for another truck to be available and pay double the cost of the statutory recovery fee to get the 55-60 miles home with my car.
I had to call a premium rate number to pay the fee, which wasn’t answered for 5 minutes. The call cost me £7.12.
This happened around 2pm. It’s now past 9pm and I’m still waiting in my car to be taken home. I have another hour or so to wait before the truck arrives, assuming it’s not late.
Not only are so-called “Smart” motorways unutterably stupid and dangerous, they’re also a recipe for unscrupulous firms to extort excessive amounts of money out of people for having the misfortune to break down on motorways that used to have hard shoulders but no longer do.
This situation is inexcusable.”