Smart motorways scandal

Dangers of all-lane running revealed in report

A DAMNING report commissioned by Highways England has revealed that breaking down on an all-lane running (ALR) section of ‘smart’ motorway in off-peak hours is up to 216 per cent more dangerous than it is on a conventional motorway with a hard shoulder. That’s despite repeated and continued assurances from the same organisation that such motorways are safer.

Furthermore, drivers who break down on an ALR motorway are typically not spotted by CCTV operatives for 17 minutes on average. The internal report was recently uncovered by the AA, which demanded that Highways England “stop removing the hard shoulder immediately”.

Titled ‘Stationary Vehicle Detection (SVD) System Monitoring’, the 2016 document was intended to assess how effective the SVD radar-based system was at automatically detecting broken-down vehicles. But, as well as revealing that SVD systems miss between 9.7 and 17.5 per cent of all broken-down vehicles due to blind spots, or the radar signals being blocked by tall vehicles, the report shows that during off-peak hours, the risks posed by broken-down vehicles increases by 216 per cent compared with a motorway with a hard shoulder.

The AA also submitted a Freedom of Information request to Highways England, which revealed only 24.2 miles of the UK’s 135.1 miles (17 per cent) of all-lane running motorway is covered by SVD.

President of the AA, Edmund King, said: “This smoke-and-mirrors approach to the removal of the hard shoulder has gone on long enough. There have been too many incidents, too many near misses and too many excuses as to why promises have been bent or broken. The public is justified in its concerns over the removal of the hard shoulder. Ultimately, until you are found by the camera, you are a sitting duck.”

Despite the evidence in the report, Max Brown, head of smart roads at Highways England, maintains: “The evidence is clear that smart motorways improve safety, with or without stopped-vehicle detection systems.”

“Drivers who break down on an ALR motorway are not spotted on CCTV for an average of 17 minutes”