‘Stop gambling with lives on motorways’

ROADS: A Yorkshire MP has urged the Transport Secretary to “stop gambling with lives” over the rollout of so-called smart motorways.

Rotherham MP Sarah Champion, who has been campaigning alongside widow Claire Mercer against the controversial roads, spoke out in the Commons yesterday.

A YORKSHIRE MP has urged the Transport Secretary to “stop gambling with lives” over the rollout of so-called smart motorways.

In the Commons yesterday, Rotherham MP Sarah Champion, who has been campaigning alongside widow Claire Mercer against the controversial roads, told Grant Shapps that before the 10-mile stretch of the M1 where Mrs Mercer’s husband Jason was killed in 2019 was converted to a smart motorway, there had been no reported incidents of cars being hit on the hard shoulder for three years.

But since the hard shoulder was changed into a working lane, she said there had been “an average of 68 breakdowns a month in live lanes”.

Ms Champion said: “Each of these incidents has the potential to end in a tragedy.”

But Mr Shapps said Highways England was continuing with the rollout of smart motorways.

“We have committed £500m to ensure these motorways are as safe as possible,” he said.

“Smart motorways have been under development since 2001 under the Blair-John Prescott Government.

“I think I am the first Secretary of State in 12 to carry out the stocktake and review, and I will not rest until these motorways are as safe as possible.”

In response to a written question, Ms Champion discovered that in just one month – March 2018 – there were 102 breakdown incidents just on the stretch of the M1 being discussed.

Speaking after the exchange Ms Champion said: “By removing the hard shoulder, vehicles becoming stranded in moving traffic is made immeasurably more likely. The Government says it’s committed to rolling out new technology and safety improvements, but all that these achieve is to marginally reduce the huge risks they’ve created by removing the vital refuge that the hard shoulder provides.”

She added: “Far too many people have lost their lives already. Too many families have lost loved ones. It is high time the Government listened to campaigners, motoring organisations and bereaved families and abandoned these deadly roads.”

In the Commons, Labour’s Shadow Transport Secretary Jim McMahon said: “Last week, I met some of the families of those who have died on smart motorways. I heard the pain and the devastation of those who have been affected by all-lane-running schemes.”

And he asked Mr Shapps for the latest data on the number of deaths on the road.

But the Transport Secretary said he would not have updated statistics until today, with the most recent figure being 39 between 2015 and 2019.

Mr Shapps said he shared the public concern over safety on the roads, but Mr McMahon added: “Yesterday, Highways England launched a campaign that encourages drivers to sing a Pet Shop Boys song as a reminder to pull into a refuge. That reduces it down to an insult, insinuating that drivers who became stranded were somehow careless. They were not. They were the victims of an ill-conceived scheme that still leaves people at risk today.”

And he urged Mr Shapps to immediately reinstate the hard shoulder on such roads.

But Mr Shapps said: “I know from the work that has been carried out that the statisticians, who have worked very hard on this, tell us that per one billion miles travelled, which is the way roads are measured, there are about a third more deaths where there are hard shoulders, because one in 12 fatalities actually takes place on a hard shoulder.”

Each of these incidents has the potential to end in a tragedy. Rotherham MP Sarah Champion.