PS PUT BRAKES ON SMART M-WAYS
Victory for the Mail as they demand an end to ‘deadly experiment’
DEADLY safety flaws mean the construction of smart motorways must be halted, MPs say today.
In a damning report, they accuse transport chiefs and civil servants of pressing ahead with the roads despite ‘major concerns’. The officials are said to have underestimated the risk of removing hard shoulders.
Technology designed to save lives is still not in use despite a promise given in 2016 to the Commons transport committee, which wrote today’s report.
‘Lives would almost certainly have been saved had the technology been in place sooner,’ the MPs say. ‘The promised safety improvements were delivered neither efficiently nor effectively.’
Their report raises serious doubts about stopped vehicle detection (SVD) systems and calls for a review by watchdogs at the Office of Rail and Road.
SVD technology is supposed to detect vehicles when they break down, alerting CCTV controllers and traffic officers so they can reach cars marooned in live traffic. The report says MPs on the committee raised concerns five years ago about ‘all-lane running’ (ALR) motorways, where the hard shoulder is permanently removed.
Safety measures in an action plan ordered by Transport Secretary Grant Shapps last year did ‘not fully address the risks associated with the removal of the hard shoulder’, the report says.
This is partly because he demanded only that National
Highways, the agency responsible for the motorways, ensured that emergency laybys were closer together. For use by drivers who break down in live traffic, the laybys are up to 1.5 miles apart.
The committee calls for a ‘retrofit’ programme on existing schemes so they are a ‘maximum’ of a mile apart, or 0.75 miles ‘where physically possible’.
The report adds: ‘In conclusion, we are not convinced that the benefits of all-lane running motorways are sufficient to justify the risks to safety associated with permanently removing the hard shoulder.’
It stops short of calling for the hard shoulder to be reinstated, saying the reduction in road capacity this would cause could push more vehicles on to ‘less safe’ local roads, resulting in more deaths and pollution.
Instead, the committee says the roll-out of ALR should be paused until more data is available to prove they are as safe as National Highways claims. Five years of safety data is available for only 29 miles of ALR routes, making assessments for decision-making ‘limited’ and ‘volatile’. The committee says the analysis should be extended to the remaining 112 miles of ALR installed prior to 2020 – and in the meantime the rollout should be halted. Around 250 miles of ALR is scheduled to be in place by 2025.
The Government decided last year that this format should become the default smart motorway in England, but this was ‘premature’, the report says.
It notes that other types of smart motorways, where the hard shoulder is not permanently removed, have lower casualty rates.
‘Controlled’ smart motorways, which retain the hard shoulder but have technology installed, are the safest M-roads and ministers should revisit the case for them, the report says.
One of the most damaging passages of the report states: ‘Successive administrations, together with the Department [for Transport] and National Highways’ predecessor, Highways England, underestimated the scale of safety measures needed effectively and reliably to mitigate the risks associated with the permanent removal of the hard shoulder. The Department and Highways England failed to deliver safety improvements to all-lane running motorways in a timely fashion, despite having promised previous transport committees that such improvements would be prioritised.’
The MPs praised the Daily Mail’s devastating undercover investigation into the safety of smart motorways. A reporter working at the South Mimms control centre in Hertfordshire for six weeks dis
‘It did not fully address the risks’
‘Cameras facing the wrong way’
covered more than one in ten cameras were broken, misted up or facing the wrong way.
Fifty-three people have died on the roads in the four years to 2019, with at least 18 of the deaths attributed to the system.
Tory MP Greg Smith said: ‘The evidence in this report, along with excellent investigations by newspapers like the Daily Mail, highlight just how far we still need to go to ensure the safety of the great British motorist.’
A DfT spokesman said: ‘We’re pleased that the transport committee recognises that reinstating the hard shoulder on all all-lane running motorways could put more drivers and passengers at risk of death and serious injury and that we’re right to focus on upgrading their safety.’