Proof smart M-ways ARE more dangerous
■ Death risk trebles under worst schemes ■ 10% of cars stuck on roads aren’t spotted
SMART motorways without a hard shoulder are three times more lethal to break down on than those that retain the safety lane, a report found yesterday.
And the chance of such crashes resulting in minor injuries were nearly twothirds higher on those roads, according to the National Highways analysis.
It also emerged that life-saving technology designed to alert traffic officers to vehicles marooned in live lanes is missing as many as 100 incidents a month.
The stopped vehicle detection (SVD) technology is flagging around 1,000 incidents monthly.
But more than 10 per cent are not being spotted, National Highways boss Nick Harris said.
It comes after this newspaper revealed how SVD failed to detect a lorry which broke down on a stretch of the M3 with its hard shoulder permanently removed.
A van smashed into the back of the lorry five minutes after it stopped on the inside lane last week, leaving the driver with serious injuries and causing a pile-up.
It is believed a nearby bridge was blocking radar signals used in SVD technology, meaning the lorry went undetected. A Daily Mail investigation last year found more than one in ten safety cameras on the roads were either broken, misted up or facing the wrong way.
In January, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps ordered that around 100 miles of smart motorway projects be paused until more safety data becomes available.
But another 100 miles of the schemes are going ahead. Vehicles often become marooned in live traffic on these roads because their hard shoulder is turned into an extra lane.
Yesterday Mr Harris said ‘of course we want it [SVD] to work even better’, but defended the rollout of smart motorways.
He said that when data on incidents involving moving vehicles is included, all-lane running (ALR) smart motorways are safer than conventional ones.
However, the analysis shows there are still more serious injuries or deaths on ALR roads than the two other types of smart motorway, which either retain the hard shoulder permanently or use it as a live lane intermittently.
Edmund King, president of the AA, said: ‘The five-year average shows that when a vehicle is stopped in a live lane of any form of smart motorway, it is worse across all safety metrics when compared to a motorway with a permanent hard shoulder.
‘Last month, more than eight out of ten drivers told us they would find breaking down on a smart motorway a stressful experience compared to just 57 per cent who would be stressed breaking down on a motorway with a permanent hard shoulder.
‘This clearly shows that most drivers are still not convinced that removing the hard shoulder is a smart move.’
Claire Mercer, whose husband Jason was killed on a stretch of the M1 with no hard shoulder in 2019, said: ‘You can come up with all the statistics you like. But all it should come down to is common sense, because what’s more dangerous, breaking down in a live lane or breaking down on a road with a hard shoulder to pull onto?’
Yesterday’s report found that, from 2016-2020, there were 0.06 serious injuries or deaths per billion vehicle miles travelled after
‘A stressful experience’
‘Drivers still aren’t convinced’
motorists broke down on ‘controlled’ smart motorways, which permanently retain the hard shoulder.
But on ALR smart motorways, the figure was 0.19 – more than three times higher.
For conventional motorways the figure was 0.09, meaning ALR smart motorways are more than twice as lethal as these roads.
For collisions involving minor injuries, the rate was 0.20 on controlled motorways and 0.18 on conventional. But for ALR it was 0.33 – 65 per cent higher.
When incidents involving moving vehicles are included, there were 1.38 people seriously injured or killed on ALR roads, 1.30 on ‘controlled’ and 1.17 on ‘dynamic hard shoulder’ smart motorways, which use the hard shoulder as a live lane at peak times only. The figure for conventional was 1.45.
Mr Harris said: ‘Our very clear ambition is to get ALR to the same level of performance on stopped lane incidents as conventional motorways. I don’t think SVD is a magic solution, but it is part of it... we want it to work even better.’
FOR years the Department for Transport and National Highways have been trying to tell us smart motorways were safe – safer even than traditional highways.
Common sense told us this couldn’t be so. Remove the hard shoulder and you remove the stranded motorist’s crucial last line of defence. But no, they said. Research showed smart motorways led to fewer accidents and fatalities.
Today that myth is exploded. A National Highways review, triggered by a damning Mail investigation, found that deaths and serious injuries were massively higher for broken-down drivers on smart motorways.
What more proof is needed that these death trap roads should be scrapped once and for all?