Extra emergency lanes to be installed on smart motorways to improve safety

Smart motorways without a hard shoulder are three times more dangerous on which to break down than those that keep the emergency lane, new figures show.

The report by Government-owned company National Highways also showed the rate of incidents involving people being killed or seriously injured (KSI) during breakdowns on three out of five smart motorway stretches, with five years' worth of safety data, increased since their hard shoulder was removed.

These were the M1 between junctions 39 and 42, the M25 between junctions five and seven and the M6 between junctions 11A and 13.

In April, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced the cancellation of planned projects to build all-lane running (ALR) smart motorways, which use the hard shoulder as a live traffic lane.

He said this was due to cost pressures and a lack of confidence among some road users.

But he has refused to reinstate the hard shoulder on existing smart motorways.

Fourteen of the 80 motorway deaths in England in 2021 happened on sections without a permanent hard shoulder.

National Highways' report found that the number of KSI casualties after a stopped vehicle was hit by a moving vehicle was 0.21 per 100 million vehicle miles travelled on ALR smart motorways between 2017 and 2021.

That compares with rates of 0.07 on controlled smart motorways, which have variable speed limits but retain a hard shoulder, and 0.10 on conventional motorways.

In that period, 3.9% of collisions on England's motorways and major A roads involved a stopped vehicle. The vast majority featured moving vehicles.

For all types of crashes, KSI rates on ALR (1.43) and controlled (1.31) schemes are below the figure for traditional motorways (1.45).

Smart motorways involve various methods to manage the flow of traffic, such as converting the hard shoulder into a live running lane, and variable speed limits.

ALR smart motorways boosted capacity at a cost lower than widening roads.

There have been long-standing safety fears following fatal incidents in which vehicles stopped in live lanes were hit from behind.

National Highways announced on Thursday that extra emergency stopping areas will be installed on 11 smart motorway sections.

This is part of a £900 million investment aimed at improving the network by 2025.

The company's chief executive, Nick Harris, said: "The majority of collisions on our network involve moving vehicles.

"The minority involve stopped vehicles and the risk of this continues to be higher on motorways without a permanent hard shoulder.

"Most of the interventions we are making such as introducing stopped vehicle detection and enabling increased enforcement of Red X signals, are designed to reduce the risk of a collision between a moving and a stopped vehicle.

"It remains too early to see the impact of the actions we have delivered, as they were largely completed in 2022.

"But we continue to monitor the impact of the actions."

AA president Edmund King said: "The fundamental problem remains that stopped vehicle incidents are more frequent on ALR smart motorways compared to motorways with hard shoulders.

"Reinstating the hard shoulder should be the aim of every political party if politicians really want to promote motoring-friendly policies.

"It will be safer and much smarter. Just do it."

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