Manchester's 'smart' motorways may not be so smart
A report claims using the hard shoulder to drive on a peak times is 'dangerous'.
Plans to convert more hard shoulders into permanent driving lanes to ease congestion should be scrapped amid safety fears, MPs have recommended.
Work is underway across Greater Manchester and parts of Cheshire to expand motorway capacity on the M60, M62 and M6 by converting the hard shoulder into traffic lanes.
But an inquiry by MPs on the Commons Transport Select Committee concluded the plan is too dangerous and has not been properly considered.
Opening up hard shoulders to traffic is seen as a cheaper and less disruptive alternative to permanently widening motorways with extra lanes.
Chair of the Transport Select Committee, Louise Ellman MP, said: The permanent removal of the hard shoulder is a dramatic change.
All kinds of drivers, including the emergency services, are genuinely concerned about the risk this presents.
It is undeniable that we need to find ways of dealing with traffic growth on the strategic network. But All Lane Running does not appear to us to be the safe, incremental change the Department wants us to think it is.''
Plans are in place to permanently convert the hard shoulder into a traffic lane on around 300 miles of motorway, with 30 schemes proposed.
RAC chief engineer David Bizley said: Whilst supporting smart motorways as a cost-effective and relatively rapid way of increasing motorway capacity, the RAC has repeatedly expressed concerns about the latest design which turns the hard shoulder on motorways into a permanent running lane.
The safety of motorists must come first and therefore new designs need to be trialled for sufficiently long to demonstrate their safety before they are introduced more widely.''
Edmund King, the AA president, added: Breaking down on a motorway in a live running lane is every driver's worst fear.
Right from the outset the AA raised substantive safety concerns, also voiced by our members, over the dangers of breaking down on a motorway without a hard shoulder or with an inadequate number and size of lay-bys.