Smart motorways operate variable speed limits and can open the hard shoulder to traffic to reduce congestion. The hard shoulder was last year permanently converted into an extra 'live' lane along a 20-mile section of the M1 between unction 28 and 31 in South Yorkshire and North Derbyshire. The National Police Chiefs' Council accepted the new road rules were confusing some motorists and said it wanted to create more awareness of the road rules and improve compliance with them. The details are still to be confirmed, but plans being discussed include courses for people who use lanes closed with a red X, break the variable speed limit, and use the hard shoulder when it has been closed. Gloucestershire's chief constable Suzette Davenport, a member of the NPCC, said: "I genuinely don't know that people understand when it is OK, "We don't have national driver offender retraining courses for the motorways. So if you get caught on the motorway you are going to get a ticket. "Whereas we have about one million people a year on other road networks who are being caught driving and are going on national offender retraining. So we've been talking to Highways England about developing a course."