‘Smart’ motorways a dumb idea
R I’VE owned a lot of unreliable cars. Mostly in my unspent youth, obviously. Unspent as opposed to misspent: I didn’t have any money to misspend back then. So kids like me bought our third or fourth or fifth-hand motor for today’s equivalent of £9.99p, had a mechanically-minded mate check it over for the price of a pint and off we went. Or rather, didn’t.
The worst car for reliability I ever drove was also the one I’m still in love with: a knackered, patched together “Inspector Morse” Jaguar Mk II, not in John Thaw’s blood-red-and-black but classic British racing green.
The more I adored it (it looked beautiful, even when it was up on blocks waiting for the clutch or an oil leak or some other bloody thing to be fixed) the more it let me down. Once, unforgettably, on a first date. Then, unforgivably, on the second. With the same girl. No third date. No more Jaguar, either.
My second-least reliable car was a decade newer than the Jag; a white Triumph Spitfire Mk III convertible. It was still fourth-hand, though. It was OK on short, local runs, when I swanned around with the top down and one arm lazily and ostentatiously draped over the side.
But long, loping journeys up the motorway never failed to defeat it. After 100 miles or so, I’d be pulling onto the hard shoulder, white steam billowing from the bonnet or black smoke pouring from the exhaust. But at least there was a hard shoulder to pull onto. These days I’m not sure I’d survive a breakdown like that.
Because the hard shoulder is rapidly becoming a thing of the past. So-called “smart motorways” are consigning what we used to call “the safety lane” to history. Four people have been killed on the M1 in just 10 months after being hit by traffic in a “live” lane that used to be the hard shoulder.
They died after failing to reach a safe lay-by, or emergency refuge area, on the same 16-mile northbound stretch.The widow of a man killed on this now-notorious section of motorway is suing Highways England for corporate manslaughter.
I hope she takes them to the cleaners. When I first heard about Highways England’s plans to incorporate safety lanes into the main carriageways of “smart” motorways, I thought: “Smart? They’re raving mad. People are going to die.”
I remembered when my Spitfire literally blew a gasket on Shap summit on the M6 in Cumbria. It was pitch-dark and even though I’d pulled onto the hard shoulder, passing lorries were missing me by inches.
It was terrifying. If I’d been forced to stop in a “live” lane, I have absolutely no doubt I’d have been killed. Stone dead at 21.
The planned nationwide rollout of “smart” motorways must be stopped, reversed, and hard shoulders reinstated, prontissimo. Highways England chunters on about providing “safety” areas for drivers to pull into every mile or so.
But what if you break down in between them? You’re screwed. It’s a lay-by lottery. Lose, and prepare for death barrelling up behind you.