Yahoo News Smart motorways are putting lives at risk, former roads ministers says
Smart motorways are putting lives at risk because emergency refuge laybys are spaced too far apart, a former roads minister who approved early designs of the motorways has said.
Sir Mike Penning, Conservative MP for Hemel Hempstead, said he has been “shocked” by Highways England’s “continued prevarication” over its commitment to ensure Emergency Refuge Areas (ERAs) are built closer together on motorways where the hard shoulder has been turned into a ‘live’ lane.
Three years ago, a Commons Transport Committee report warned how the intermittent lay-bys were “placed too scarcely” apart.
It said the “scarcity” of emergency zones could “lead to a driver being forced to stop in a live lane in the event of a breakdown.”
Jim O’Sullivan, boss of Highways England which maintains the country’s motorways, told the committee in 2018 it would “install a number of additional emergency areas in locations with the highest levels of potential live lane stops,” adding how “future” smart motorways would have a maximum spacing reduced from 1.5 miles to one mile “where applicable”.
Sir Mike said: “When I met Highways England in May of this year I was shocked to learn that none of the retrofitting of refuge areas had taken place, a whole 16 months after a commitment was made in writing to a Commons Select Committee.
“I also pressed Highways England on their commitment to reducing spacing in the future “where applicable” to one mile – which is probably still too far apart – and left the meeting with the strong impression Highways England would look, again, to do the absolute minimum when it came to improving safety by reducing refuge area spacing.
“The ‘where applicable’ qualification appears to be just another attempt to reduce costs to the detriment of the safety of recovery operators and motorists.
“Highways England’s continued prevarication on this issue really isn’t good enough – the lives of recovery operators and stranded road users are being endangered by the design of existing sections of All Lane Running motorways.”
Matt Jacobs, whose father, Derek, 83, was killed in March when his van came to a stop on the first lane of the M1 smart motorway before being hit by a coach, said smart motorways should be scrapped altogether.
“Hard shoulders have been a safety feature of motorways since the 1960s when there was a fraction of the traffic there is today,” he said. “With today’s volume of traffic, the decision to remove them is murderous negligence and incompetence. Many more people will be killed as a direct consequence of this decision.”
Edmund King, AA president, said: “From the outset we have told Ministers and Highways England we need more emergency refuge areas. The calls we listen to from members broken down in a live lane, parting they won’t be hit, are harrowing. The current system is an accident waiting to happen.
“Drivers concern at safety implications of smart motorways is growing yet Government refuses to act.
“Any incident in a live lane also causes chronic congestion due to lane closures so the rationale of smart motorways is backfiring’
A spokeswoman for Highways England said the average spacing of ERAs on smart motorways without a hard shoulder was now “just over a mile”. She insisted the new style of motorways are “good for drivers” because they add extra lanes letting more people travel, and use technology which “makes journeys more reliable and evidence proves they are as safe as traditional motorways, which are already among the safest roads in the world.”
She said the company will “continue to make some changes to the design of motorways” by making the ERAs “more visible”, with more signposting, as well as introducing detection systems to spot stationary vehicles.
