Let’s get smart

There’s one thing you can say with certainty about the faceless bureaucrats who thought up smart motorways to improve traffic flow – they weren’t very smart.

Scrapping the hard shoulder means any vehicle which breaks down or is involved in an accident has nowhere to go in an emergency – and, as we reveal today, that has now caused 79 deaths.

Delivery driver Andrew Steer became the latest victim in January when his van hit a stationary lorry near Nottingham.

No wonder campaigning widow Claire Mercer calls smart M-ways the Grenfell of the roads.

The Government has paused new construction pending a review, but that still leaves 375 miles of madness.

Yet it is not a matter of money to put right what is wrong. All that has to be done is to switch off the extra lane so it becomes a hard shoulder again.

That would be the really smart thing to do.