Safety fears could prompt a Smart Motorway u-turn
Councillor thinks hard shoulder will return
A £92 million scheme to turn a stretch of the M20 into a smart motorway could be made redundant and returned to its former layout over safety fears, a councillor has predicted.
Work to transform the road between West Malling and Aylesford is nearing completion but concerns have been raised over a lack of technology to spot cars stranded on the stretch. A coroner investigating the death of eight-year-old Dev Naran on a smart motorway in the Midlands told an inquest earlier this month of her fears over the “risk to life from the loss of the hard shoulder”.
Similar concerns were echoed by Aylesford MP Tracey Crouch, who is writing to Highways England to confirm the type of stopped vehicle detection methods that are being installed on the M20.
As the KM reported last week, the agency has not yet said whether the M20 will get Stationary Vehicle Detection technology.
Cllr Gary Cooke told a meeting of Maidstone’s Joint Transport Board he suspected even more money would be spent on returning the project to square one.
“We’ve got a situation where coroners are now referring to smart motorways as being unsafe,” he said.
“You drive down the M20 and see the work going on, and we are pouring money into turning something that was hitherto more safe than it currently is, into something I believe is inherently unsafe.
“I can see a situation where, through pressure from coroners or other people, the money being spent creating these smart motorways is going to be used, very smartly, to undo the work and return it to what it was before.
“That’s a shame because the money could be used better elsewhere.”
Highways England maintains its smart motorways are safe, however, and urged drivers to only stop on the carriageway in an emergency.
The authority added that all lane running schemes include “pan-tilt-zoom” CCTV systems with infra-red, plus signals and electronic messages to keep road users up to date on lane closures, speed limits and traffic. A spokesman added: “Stopped vehicle detection is to be incorporated in all future smart motorway schemes as standard. However it is part of a package of safety measures just because it is not installed does not mean the road is unsafe.”