Six-car pileup after smart motorway IT glitch

Vehicle a ‘sitting duck’ on former hard shoulder as technology that detects stranded drivers fails

THE smart motorways computer safety system shut down across the country leading to a “terrifying” six-car pileup after a vehicle broke down in a live lane, The Telegraph can reveal.

A whistleblower has told how National Highways’ systems “crashed” which disabled radar technology that detects stranded vehicles, leaving control room staff unable to close lanes to traffic, set speed limits and signs or use CCTV cameras.

The “catastrophic failure” culminated in a pileup on the southbound M6 on Jan 19 when a car was left a “sitting duck” after breaking down on the inside lane which used to be a hard shoulder.

The vehicle failed to reach an emergency refuge area on the “all lane running” stretch of the motorway before being hit repeatedly by other vehicles between junctions 3a and 3 near Coventry.

The National Highways whistleblower, speaking on condition of anonymity, said: “We had no stopped vehicle detection systems, no CCTV and no control of signals and signs.

“The fact no one was killed is pure luck. Thankfully, God was watching over them, because we certainly weren’t.”

A National Highways spokesman said the “unplanned outage” lasted three hours, with the six-car collision resulting in only “minor injuries”. The Dynac software, which controls gantry signs and signals – including the “red X” which closes lanes to traffic –and stopped vehicle detection radar shut down between 5.25pm and 8.30pm.

Control centres in the North West, Yorkshire and North East, West Midlands, East Midlands and South West went offline, leaving only the South East and East operational.

Claire Mercer, who has campaigned for the Government to scrap all smart motorways after her husband, Jason, died on the M1 in 2019, said it was only a matter of time before numerous lives were lost in a single “preventable tragedy”.

She said: “National Highways tells motorists to move left in an emergency. But, this driver on the M6 moved as far left as possible, but was left like a sitting duck because there was no hard shoulder.

“That technology failure meant a breakdown became a mass pileup. When Dynac and its safety systems fail, smart motorways become dumb motorways.”

Mrs Mercer, 47, added that Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, had “lacked the nerve” in 2023 to scrap all smart motorways when he halted the roll out of new ones.

The National Highways spokesman added: “As with any technology, there are occasional planned and unplanned outages and so we have well-rehearsed procedures to deal with issues which arise.

“We have additional measures to limit any impact on drivers or traffic flow, including increased patrolling by our traffic officers and active monitoring of CCTV.”