31 May 2024
Political parties have an opportunity to finally commit to scrapping all ‘smart’ motorways, according to The AA who have been raising concerns about their safety for over a decade.
Abolishing ‘smart’ motorways is a major plank of the AA’s Motoring Manifesto and is supported by 81% of drivers.
Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, announced in April 2023 that new smart motorways would be scrapped. The AA has been at the forefront of this campaign and before the announcement had written to the Prime Minister asking him to scrap ‘smart’ motorways.
The question remains what will happen to the existing 193 miles of ‘All Lane Running’ ‘smart’ motorways and the 63 miles with a ‘Dynamic Hard Shoulder’ ‘smart’ motorways - where the hard shoulder is used as a traffic lane when it is busy.
The National Highways latest stocktake accepts: The risk of a collision and the risk of a serious injury or death due to a stopped vehicle collision is lowest on conventional and controlled motorways. (controlled motorways have hard shoulders).
What happens to the existing ‘smart’ motorways?
The AA thinks there is a relatively simple and inexpensive solution.
On the All Lane Running sections, reinstate the hard should with a Red X and new lane markings. This would bring them in line with the Dynamic Hard Shoulder sections.
The objective would be on all these stretches for the hard shoulder to be in place permanently, but the technology (overhead gantries and Red Xs) still would give the opportunity to open this lane to traffic in exceptional circumstances.
The safety advantage is that there would be fewer live lane stops and keeping the emergency areas and overhead technology adds an extra layer of safety. These stetches would then become controlled motorways. Controlled motorways with hard shoulders and overhead technology are among the safest roads with reduced live lane stops and incidents. Controlled motorways and Dynamic hard shoulder motorways have lower rates for those killed or seriously injured.
“Politicians need to stand up and be counted. There is no great love for ‘smart’ motorways and the vast majority want them scrapped.”
Would this cause congestion?
The critics argue by giving back the hard shoulder, one third of capacity could be lost. This is not the case. Currently ‘smart’ motorways are not really alleviating congestion as more than one third of drivers don’t use the inside lane as they are petrified there may be broken down vehicles ahead.
In addition, any incident on ‘smart’ motorways causes severe congestion by closing lanes, slowing traffic, and delaying the emergency services getting through to crashes which again puts lives at risk.
DfT figures show that average speeds on motorways and strategic roads were slower in 2023.
Middle lane hogs
Current lack of lane discipline and middle lane and outside lane hogs also reduce the effective capacity. All too often on four lane ‘smart’ motorways, vehicles hog lanes two and three which in effect makes lane one redundant.
To help maintain capacity, the reinstatement of hard-shoulders should be backed up by major police campaigns targeting offenders and hard-hitting lane discipline information campaigns to get rid of the middle-lane hogs and free up road space.
Safer
Reinstating the hard shoulder also means the emergency services can get to life-threatening incidents more quickly. The first hour after a casualty collision is the ‘golden hour’ when it is essential to get trauma patients to hospital to give them a better chance of living.
Edmund King OBE, AA president, said: “The ‘smart’ motorway experiment has failed. “Politicians need to stand up and be counted. There is no great love for ‘smart’ motorways and the vast majority want them scrapped.
“Despite all the hundreds of millions of pounds being spent to retrofit and try to justify a flawed concept, now is the time for a radical change. Drivers do not trust ‘smart’ motorways.
“The answer should be reinstating the hard shoulder, and this should be the aim of every political party if politicians really want to promote motoring-friendly policies. It will be safer and much smarter.
“If not, history suggests future governments will have another ‘Post Office-type’ scandal on their hands, as politicians and civil servants knew from the outset that lives would be put at risk by removing the hard shoulder and putting in inadequate emergency areas.”
Background:
History: The original M42 pilot was relatively successful with Emergency Refuge Areas (ERAs) every 400-500m - but without consultation the ‘smart’ motorways were rolled out with ERAS spaced at 2,500m (1.5miles).
This has been the major safety problem as 38% of breakdowns on ‘smart’ motorways happen in live lanes. The then Transport Secretary Grant Shapps told BBC Panorama (Britain’s killer motorways) in 2020 that 38 people had died on smart motorways in the last five years.
An FOI request found that on a smart motorway stretch of the M25 ‘near misses’ had increased 20-fold comparing five years before the smart motorway opened and five years after.
National Highways and their predecessor Highways Agency tend to state ALR (all lane running) or DHS (dynamic hard shoulder) motorways are ‘at least as safe’ as conventional motorways.
However, there is twice the likelihood (40%) of breaking down in a live lane on ALR than on a conventional motorway (20%). Latest figures show they are not as safe for live lane breakdowns.
Since their introduction, the risk of collisions involving a vehicle stopped in a live lane has increased.
Increased risks: There is compelling evidence from various previous Highway Agency/ Highways England studies that the actual risk rate on the pilot M42 was almost three times lower (32%) than the projected risk rate for the roll-out of All Lane Running ‘smart’ motorway (85%). We contend this is due to the extra ERAs and reduced risk of live lane collisions on the pilot.
Evidence:
The graph (fig 5.7-1) in 'Managed Motorways – All Lanes Running All-Purpose Trunk Roads (APTR)/Dual 3 lane Motorway (D3M) Analysis and Hazard Assessment' May 2012 shows the risk rate for the M42 pilot was almost three times lower than that projected risk for All Lane Running. https://s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/assets.highwaysengland.co.uk/specialist-information/knowledge-compendium/2011-13-knowledge-programme/MMFD-ATA-035_-_Issue_1_0_08-05-12.pdf
Scandal: The AA contends that ‘smart’ motorways were designed as a cost-cutting measure to increase capacity even though it was known at the time and subsequently that there would be greater safety risks. Subsequent governments have glossed over these findings.
Several coroners* have indicated and warned that ‘future deaths will occur unless action is taken.’
Channel 5 details: Smart Motorways: The Shocking Truth - Channel 5 HD | TV Guide
*https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Costal-Stancu-2010-0379.pdf
CASE STUDY: Keith Barrett represents family of Dev Naran killed on M6 ‘smart’ motorway
AA Motoring Manifesto https://www.theaa.com/about-us/newsroom/aa-motoring-manifesto-2024