Many drivers admit they don’t know rules for smart motorways

LESS THAN half ( 48 per cent) of UK motorists know the rules for using smart motorways, a new survey suggests.

Just over one in four ( 27 per cent) drivers say they are aware of what a smart motorway is but do not know the relevant regulations, according to the poll commissioned by road safety charity Brake and breakdown recovery firm Green Flag.

A further quarter ( 25 per cent) of the 2,010 drivers questioned said they do not even know what a smart motorway is, let alone what the rules are.

It comes after a lorry driver was last week jailed for 10 months for causing the deaths of two men in a collision on a stretch of smart motorway in Yorkshire.

Jason Mercer, 44, and Alexandru Murgeanu, 22, died when a lorry driven by Prezemyslaw Szuba, 40, ploughed into their stationary vehicles on the M1 near Sheffield on June 7 last year.

Smart motorway rules include not driving in lanes below a red X.

Drivers are also urged to use refuge areas when possible if they suffer an emergency or breakdown, rather than stopping in live lanes.

Smart motorways are used to increase capacity without the more disruptive and costly process of widening carriageways.

They feature various methods to manage the flow of traffic, including variable speed limits and using the hard shoulder as a live running lane. Once Highways England is alerted to a stopped vehicle in a live lane, overhead gantries will display a red X to indicate the lane is closed.

But there are concerns it can take too long to spot a stranded vehicle and that some drivers ignore red Xs.

BBC Panorama found at least 38 people have died on stretches of smart motorways in the past five years.

An “evidence stocktake” published by Transport Secretary Grant Shapps in March stated the risk of a collision between moving vehicles is lower on smart motorways than conventional motorways but the chance of a crash involving a moving vehicle and a stationary vehicle is higher when the hard shoulder is removed.

Highways England insists smart motorways – a network covering over around 500 miles in England – are “at least as safe as, or safer than, the conventional motorways they replaced”.