Hard shoulders won’t return with smart motorway rethink
TRANSPORT Secretary Mark Harper says the Government won’t heed demands for the return of hard shoulders to alllane running (ALR) ‘smart motorways’.
Appearing before Transport Select Committee MPs last week, Harper said the safety performance of smart motorways is “very good”, but that’s “not reflected in public confidence”.
Harper told MPs: “Smart motorways remain the safest roads on the network. They are safer than conventional motorways and they are safer, by some margin, than A-roads.”
The AA is among those calling for hard shoulders to be restored on 235 miles of ALR motorways.
“Drivers don’t trust them, the technology isn’t foolproof, and 37 per cent of breakdowns on smart motorways happen in live lanes. And basically those drivers are sitting ducks,” said AA president Edmund King.
Fellow campaigner Claire Mercer’s husband Jason was killed on an ALR section of the M1 after a collision. She welcomes the scrapping of new schemes announced recently, but told PA News: “The existing ones are killing us, and I’m not settling for more emergency refuge areas. It’s half the battle, but we’ve still got half the battle to go.”
Labour Shadow Transport Secretary Louise Haigh challenged Harper in Parliament, saying: “The combination of smart motorways and faulty technology is giving drivers serious cause for concern. So will he do the right thing and urgently reinstate the hard shoulder?”
Harper accused Ms Haigh of avoiding difficult choices. “If she wants to reinstate the hard shoulder and maintain network capacity, that would mean spending billions on road improvements, and she has no plan to pay for it.
“If she’s not doing that, it means massive congestion on motorways, which will force people on to less safe A-roads, which will lead to more people losing their lives, not fewer.”