Roll out of smart motorways on hold over safety concerns

The roll out of smart motorways, including the conversion of part of the M62, has been put on hold after being linked with an increase in the number of road deaths.

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps told the House of Commons on this week that no new stretches of smart motorways would be built until a government review has been completed.

• rochdaleonline.co.uk/news-features/2/news-headlines/130990/smart-motorways-to-be-reviewed-as-transport-secretary-admits-people-are-dying-on-the-new-roads

Speaking last year, Highways England’s chief executive, Jim O'Sullivan, said motorists ‘did not understand’ smart motorways and drivers were ‘confused’ about when they could use the hard shoulder and when it is closed.

The smart motorway designs – which use variable speed limits to reduce congestion and can turn the hard shoulder into an additional driving lane – are already used on sections of major motorways, including the M62.

A new 19-mile section of smart motorway had been announced over the Pennines on the M62 between Rochdale and Brighouse, to link up with other schemes on the M62 – but this is now on hold, as are all other stretches currently being worked on.

An investigation for BBC’s Panorama programme which aired earlier this week revealed 38 people have been killed on smart motorways in the past five years, and 19,000 motorists get stuck in a live lane after breaking down on a smart motorway every year.

Additionally, the programme showed that the original trial of the smart motorway system, trialled on the M42 placed safe laybys 600m apart. When the network was actually rolled out, this increased to 2.5 miles apart.

Mr Shapps told Panorama: “I think two-and-a-half miles is much too far apart. People need to be passing these [laybys] every 60 seconds passing at a normal speed.”

The day after Panorama aired, a report by the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Roadside Rescue and Recovery, led by the former minister who approved Britain’s smart motorways, Sir Mike Penning, found that the motorways had been conducted with “a shocking degree of carelessness”.

Speaking to Panorama, Sir Penning said: “We need to do something about it now. People have lost their loved ones, people have been killed or injured on these roads and it should never have happened.”

The report by MPs shows that: “The necessary steps have not been taken in advance to ensure the safety of motorists and recovery operators. Many of the measures now being taken should have been in place before the roll-out of these roads commenced.

“This would have also cost the taxpayer less, given the high cost of retrofitting in comparison with installing the safety features during construction – and, more importantly, it would have saved lives.”

It also outlines that live lane breakdowns “are central to all the problems” and the 38% live lane breakdown rate amongst road users is – almost double that of traditional motorways – “completely unacceptable”.

The report highlights that radar technology used to automatically close lanes after detecting stationary vehicles after breaking down (Stopped Vehicle Detection) has only been implemented on 25 miles of the M25, less than 7% of the 400-mile smart motorway network.

In the report by MPs, Highways England Chief Executive Jim O’Sullivan admitted a number of deaths could have been prevented had Stopped Vehicle Detection been in place.

A report written by Highways England and uncovered by the AA shows it takes, on average, 17 minutes to identify a vehicle broken down in a live lane where Stopped Vehicle Detection is not in place. More than a third (36%) of live lane breakdowns took more than 15 minutes to find, with the longest taking more than an hour to discover on CCTV.

According to the Highways report, the Stopped Vehicle Detection radar system can detect live lane breakdown events an average of 16 minutes more quickly, and Operation Centres have a three-minute window to set signal changes, like red ‘X’, once a vehicle has stopped in a live lane.

Edmund King, AA president said: “This is a truly shocking revelation and shows just how dangerous it can be breaking down in a live lane. This highlights why growing numbers of the public are justified in their safety concerns over the removal of the hard shoulder.

“Ultimately, until you are found by the camera you are a sitting duck.

“Taking three minutes to set the red ‘X’ is too long for someone in a broken-down vehicle to wait. Expecting someone to wait in a dangerous and life-threatening position for 20 minutes is simply inexcusable.

“There have been too many incidents, too many near misses and too many excuses as to why promises have been bent or broken.

“We must stop removing the hard shoulder immediately and double the number of emergency refuge areas already in place.”

Additionally, a Freedom of Information request by Panorama for one stretch of the M25 showed one warning sign had been out of action for 336 days, and there was a rise in near misses.

Speaking on the programme, reporter Richard Bilton said: “In the five years before smart motorways, there were 72 recorded near misses. In the five years after it became a smart motorway, there were 1,485 near misses, a 20-fold rise.”

Highways England has issued the following statement in response to media reports: “Any death on our roads is one too many, and our deepest sympathies remain with the family and friends of those who lost their lives.

“The Transport Secretary has asked the Department for Transport to carry out, at pace, an evidence stocktake to gather the facts about smart motorway safety.

“We are committed to safety and are supporting the department in its work on this.”

The BBC Panorama investigation is available to view on BBC iPlayer now:

• www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000dtqv/panorama-britains-killer-motorways