torkell | Today's smart motorway hilarity

Today's smart motorway hilarity: joining the M27 at Whiteley I saw the front car amble down the sliproad at 50mph, with an impatient Audi tailgating it (having cut across two lanes to take the exit at the last moment). This junction has the lane join without merging so everyone continued the sliproad became lane 1 of the now 4-lane motorway... at which point the three or four cars in front of me all popped out into lane 2 to continue doing maybe 55mph (including the tailgating Audi!). There was a distant car in lane 1 which I swear was moving faster than the cars in lane 2!

Does everyone just not use lane 1 of a smart motorway or something?