Road chiefs reject red lights for motorway rescue vehicles

THE Government company behind smart motorways has objected to attempts by Grant Shapps to allow roadside recovery vehicles to use red flashing lights on their vehicles.

The Transport Secretary privately backs allowing breakdown vehicles to display red lights, rather than orange ones, as a deterrent to speeding vehicles to keep recovery staff safe.

MPs and campaigners think they could be of significant value on new smart motorways where the hard shoulder has been scrapped. The move comes after Mr Shapps received an urgent “one year on” report on the safety of smart motorways amid escalating concern about the numbers of deaths and serious injuries on them.

At the moment, recovery operators are only permitted to fit their vehicles with and use amber warning beacons.

In June last year, Mr Shapps ordered a departmental consultation into whether they could start to use red lights amid calls that it would offer workers greater protection.

But in a letter dated March 11, Mr Shapps told Sir Mike Penning MP, the former Tory minister, that while a consultation found “general support from the recovery industry for extending the use of red flashing lights... Highways England expressed concern that use of red flashing lights on roadside recovery vehicles could lead to a dilution of their effectiveness and hence increased risk to HE Traffic Officers in their role while controlling live flows.”

Mr Shapps said that the review had found “little evidence that red flashing lamps would help with conspicuity of roadside operators and their vehicles” and so recommended further trials. Mr Shapps has ordered off-road trials.

Last night Sir Mike, who chairs the all party parliamentary group on roadside rescue and recovery, told The Sunday Telegraph: “Very often those on the coal face are best placed to say what they need to keep them safe.”

Andy Lambert, chairman of the Rescue Industry Support Charity, added: “Everyone has the right to know that everything that can be done to keep people safe is being done.”

Samantha Cockerill, who set up the Campaign for Safer Roadside Rescue and Recovery after her partner, Steve Godbold, a vehicle recovery worker, was killed on the M25, said: “Red means danger, and is consequently taken seriously by motorists who then slow down.

“Why Highways England think their staff are more important than other people working on motorways is a mystery.”